Ireland Poster Campaign Aims To Humanize Sex Workers

A recent ad campaign launched by Turn Off The Blue Light aims change the ways sex workers in Ireland are perceived. A series of four ads features women of all types from different backgrounds describing their every day lives (dropping kids off, going to school, planning to run a business, etc.). It concludes with the line, "And I'm a sex worker."

Turn Off The Blue Light is an Irish organization that is run by sex workers and was started in response to organizations pushing for the criminalization (and in their mind eradication) of prostitution. With their current campaign TOBL is trying to give a more realistic face to sex workers in the country. Most people think of sex workers as either victimized women in horrible conditions or as the "happy hooker" who lives a lavish lifestyle with glamorous clients a la Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. It would seem that few understand or realize that sex workers are mothers, lovers, sisters, daughters, and a million other things. Their job is just that, a job.

Before the posters were released they were shown to the TOBL committee and met with very positive responses. Turn Off The Blue Light