Firms urged not to take clients to lapdancing clubs

Irish companies have been urged not to allow their employees to use lapdancing clubs for corporate entertainment purposes.

The call comes from Ruhama, a Dublin-based charity which offers support to women working in prostitution and the sex industry.

It embarked on the campaign in June when it wrote to several hundred companies asking them to sign up to a "charter" committing themselves not to use such clubs when entertaining clients.

Ruhama spokeswoman Gerardine Rowley said at a press conference in Dublin yesterday that more than 50 companies had pledged their support for the campaign, and that almost 40 of these had signed the charter.

There are thought to be about six lapdancing clubs in the Dublin area and seven more outside the city.

While Ms Rowley did not have the names of any specific companies which had used such clubs, she said there was a continuing concerted effort by the clubs to target the corporate market.

"We have heard in our work here that the clubs send in flyers and promotional material to businesses and offices, and there is no doubt the clubs are trying to 'normalise' the sex industry as harmless and as just another night out.

"Lap dancing clubs, however are part and parcel of the global sex industry and a gateway into prostitution and trafficking. The harm this industry does to the women is unimaginable.

"We have worked with women in prostitution who had been trafficked in to work in lapdancing clubs."

She said there was intense competition between the women in the clubs to get custom and to be the "best" at offering customers what they wanted.

This put pressure on some women to go beyond just lapdancing, Ms Rowley said.

She also spoke of the "dissociation" many women experienced between themselves and their own bodies while they were performing, to cope with the work.

"This does lasting psychological damage," she said.

"Just because these clubs are legal does not mean exploitation is not going on in them," she said.

Among the businesses which she said had signed up to the charter are Olympus Ireland, BD Medical, The Irish Times, the Housing Finance Agency, Clonmel Enterprises and the McEniff Hotel Group.

A spokesman for the Housing Finance Agency said the company had been "more than happy" to sign the charter when approached by Ruhama in June.

"We think it's a reasonable and decent thing to support them in this," he said.

Ms Rowley said many of the companies had also offered financial support for Ruhama's work.

The initiative is supported by the National Women's Council of Ireland. Its director, Joanna McMinn, said there was a clear responsibility on the corporate sector "to oppose the advances of the lapdancing industry who want to sell the myth that lap-dancing is harmless".

A spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners said that under Section 84A of the Taxes Consolidation Act, business entertainment held in lapdancing or adult entertainment clubs was not admissible as a tax allowance.