SURVIVOR of prostitution and recovering drug addict Mia de Faoite left an audience in tears on Friday night last as she recalled the true, disturbing face of prostitution.
Ms de Faoite, who is an activist for Turn Off the Red Light campaign, told the gathering organised by the Clare Women’s Network that the only way to shine a light on the issue is to hear from those who lived that life.
Refusing to let her past define her, she said she could never forget the life she has left behind and how she entered it.
“My decision to enter prostitution seemed to me at the time quite a rational one. I had developed a heroin problem at the age of 33 having never taken a drug in my life before,” she said knowing she had one valuable commodity she could sell – her female body.
She thought she would not have to do this for long, just until she and her girlfriend, who also had a drug problem, would be “sorted”.
Life in prostitution “owned me in a short period of time” however, she explained adding that it was very difficult to see choices.
The softly spoken NUI Maynooth student brought tears to the audience’s eyes as she recalled “the inevitable” – rape.
Her first rape was in the form of a gang rape.
“From that night on I no longer lived. I just existed and in a world I could no longer comprehend. I could no longer make sense of. The only reason I coped was thought disassociation.
“The young woman who was with me that night did not survive. Her drug use spiralled out of control and she died alone of an overdose about two months later. To many her death was just another sad statistic but to me she would always be of value.”
A year later Mia was raped again. Afterwards she was sitting on the street, her money and phone also sto- len. One of her “regulars” pulled up in his car, he was a taxi driver. She told him what happened and he took her home, and even though he knew she had just been raped and robbed he insisted she have sex with him to pay the “fare”.
Her last rape was by two men on cocaine.
“We as prostituted women were a primary target for any man who wanted to fulfil his fantasy of rape. Only with us they can do it for real and get away with it. Society and the laws that govern it play a major role in keeping it that way, and it will remain unsuitable while it remains le- gal to buy a human being in the first place,” she said. She had to accept her rapists would never be brought to justice.
The drugs helped her cope with life on the streets, and she was caught in an never ending spiral.
She gave accounts of being humiliated by teenagers who threw eggs at her and men who urinated upon her.
One of her friends who were trafficked from Africa into Ireland was regularly beaten by her trafficker, her young post-pubescent body already almost broken from starvation.
While an addiction to drugs led Ms de Faoite into prostitution, many of her friends were trafficked into Ireland.
Ireland is targeted by these traffickers because of the law, and due to the prices that can be charged here compared to mainland Europe.
And the stories went on, as the tears flowed.
This mother of one was speaking from the heart about a cruel heartless world she inhabited and teenage girls and women continue to live in today in Ireland, Clare and small towns around the county.
She shared a letter from her daughter, who knew at a young age her mother would have to unwillingly leave her at night to sell sex, and how this changed her mother’s demeanour as night approached.
The only way to address this issue of prostitution, according to Ms deFaoite, is to criminalise the purchasers of sex and not to continue to further victimise those forced into prostitution.
Men of all ages and creed, as many as one in 15, buy sex every day.
These are often family men of high social standing – the “good citizen” according to Ms de Faoite.
She challenged everyone present in Ennis to reconsider their definition of a good citizen, and argued the law must lead if attitudes are to follow.