A new campaign hammers home the brutal reality of sex trafficking in Ireland — with Tinder profiles telling victims’ stories and inviting users to swipe left on sex trafficking. Irish ad agency eightytwenty used models to create Tinder profiles for three characters, Natalia, Ana and Kim. As a user flicks through each woman’s pictures, they see her transform from a composed, made-up beauty to a badly beaten victim. “Your options are left or right,” the final slide reads. “Sex trafficking victims have no options. You have the option to help end it now.”
Tinder is no longer just a way to quickly swipe through a bunch of photos of prospective mates: it’s now also a place for opponents of sex work to promote their cause, at least in Ireland. Irish advertising agency EightyTwenty just launched a controversial new campaign on Tinder that uses several fake profiles of actresses portraying women supposedly forced into sex work in the country. The first few photos on these profiles are nothing out of the ordinary, but interested parties who swipe right to see more photos soon come across images of the women showing startlingly realistic simulated injuries and other signs of abuse. The final two images on each fake profile include a message decrying sex trafficking and a link to another organization, Turn Off The Red Light, which seeks a full ban on all forms of sex work throughout all of Ireland.