The charity – providing national support to women affected by prostitution, sex trafficking and sexual exploitation – has found AI is worsening online imagery based abuse in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Frances Fitzgerald, former T\u00e1naiste, Minister for Justice and Ruhama ambassador, said this is \u201cone of the most urgent challenges of our time,\u201d as she laid out how society could \u201ctackle an onslaught of pornography, sexual violence and sexual exploitation in Ireland and internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Fitzgerald added: \u201cThese issues do not exist in isolation. They corrode the fabric of our communities, distort human dignity and inflict harm – often hidden, but always profound on individuals, families and society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruhama is holding its annual conference today in Dublin, where the targeting of women and girls via the online sphere will be discussed.<\/p>\n
Laura Bates, author of The New Age of Sexism, will address the conference. The writer has claimed gender bias is now evident on free-to-use AI tools and across the internet.<\/p>\n
Ms Bates said females are now 17 times more likely to experience online abuse than men. She found 96pc of all deepfakes are non consensual pornography and 99pc of these false pornographic videos are of women.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Ruhama has reported a 35pc increase year-on-year in the number of human trafficking victims – 216 – it has supported in Ireland.<\/p>\n
There was also a 20pc rise in the number of sex workers being aided by the charity in 2024, compared to the year prior.<\/p>\n
In total, 1,128 people engaged with the charity in 2024, a 75pc increase from 2023. And most victims – 244 – were located in Dublin, with the second highest number in Limerick\/the mid west – 114.<\/p>\n
Ms Fitzgerald said it was vital that society \u201cconfronts the harms of pornography, sexual violence and sexual exploitation,\u201d and \u201cchampions a vision of respect, resilience, renewal and real change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barbara Condon, CEO of Ruhama, stated it was time for a \u201cvital and urgent conversation – one that touches the lives of some of the most vulnerable women and girls both here in Ireland and around the world: How to effectively address pornography, sexual violence and sexual exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Condon added: \u201cTechnology is reshaping the landscape\u2026bringing both new challenges and opportunities\u2026we will explore these emerging dynamics, share knowledge and best practices and work to develop strategies that protect and empower those most affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conference will also examine how tech can be utilised to track down traffickers and connect women and girls affected by domestic, sexual and gender-based violence (DSGBV) and mobilise public support.<\/p>\n
Last year, Ruhama launched The Game Changer Project, a collaboration with the GAA and White Ribbon Ireland – a campaign to engage with men and boys to tackle DSGBV.<\/p>\n
The conference will explore the challenges for Ireland, how tech has changed sexual exploitation and measures to prevent exploitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The charity – providing national support to women affected by prostitution, sex trafficking and sexual exploitation – has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,19,17,2188,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-110414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-laura-lynott","15":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}