Sex slave trafficking crisis looms

GANGS trafficking in sex slaves and other black market workers are posing a growing challenge for the Irish authorities, the minister with responsibility for human rights has warned.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs Conor Lenihan compared the problem to that presented by domestic organised crime and warned law enforcers would lose ground in the fight against it without a concerted effort to tackle it.

“Trafficking is a particularly despicable violation of human rights. It reduces human beings to commodities to be bought and sold at will,” Mr Lenihan told a conference.

“Much as we might want the problem of trafficking to diminish, increasing globalisation inevitably means we are going to have more and more trafficking. As a country we need to come up with very strong solutions.

“We found this with organised crime. If you do not tackle it early and do not develop the legislative framework, you lose out for 10-15 years. If you do not tackle it early, these particular organisations and networks can spawn and form linkages,” he said.

Ireland’s record on dealing with trafficking and its victims came in for repeated criticism at the Department of Foreign Affairs-

sponsored conference on human rights, which heard there were 3,000-4,000 mafia-style groups in Europe either engaged in, or able to engage in, human trafficking. Among the failings highlighted were:

No safe houses to protect those who escape from traffickers.

No right for victims to remain in the country until they can plan their future.

Lack of specialised garda units outside of Dublin.

No research to establish the extent of the problem.

Over-reliance on immigration or employment legislation to deal with trafficking when specialist laws were needed.

Geraldine Rowley, assistant director of Ruhama, a voluntary organisation that helps women affected by prostitution, said many of the non-national women who contacted the service mysteriously disappeared after one or two contacts.

Dr Helga Konrad of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said trafficked people were often lumped in with economic migrants and treated as an immigration issue with little emphasis on the long-term enslavement and exploitation that distinguished traffickers from smugglers.