Legislation set to finally outlaw human trafficking

HUMAN trafficking will finally become a criminal offence when new legislation is passed in the coming weeks.

The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill was debated in the Dáil yesterday and now goes to the Seanad for consideration.

If passed, the bill would make it a crime to traffic a person for the purpose of sexual or labour exploitation or removal of his or her organs.

Up to now, the only way of prosecuting someone for trafficking was under the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act.

While this law made it an offence for a person to help smuggle an illegal immigrant or asylum seeker into the State, it did not address the trafficking of persons for sexual or labour exploitation.

The US State Department was among those who criticised the Government for not clearly defining trafficking in the law.

In its 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report, the state department said Ireland had become “a transit and destination country for a significant number of trafficking victims from Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia”.

The failure to put in place the necessary legislation had complicated efforts to determine the extent of the problem here, the state department argued.

Section 3 of the bill creates offences of trafficking in children for the purposes of labour exploitation and removal of organs for exploitative purposes.

Similarly, section 5 creates offences of trafficking in adults for the purposes of labour or sexual exploitation or the removal of organs.

Both sections also make it an offence to sell or purchase persons.

All these offences will be punishable by a maximum prison sentence of life.

The bill contains measures to allow an alleged trafficking victim give evidence through a live television link rather than have to face the accused trafficker in court.

During yesterday’s debate, Fine Gael called on the Government to go further and make it an offence to pay for sex.

“The demand side of the trade must be targeted, regardless of whether it is represented by a farmer, an accountant, a business man or even a politician,” said Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney.

“No law exists to deal with someone who avails of a person’s sexual services.”

But Mr Lenihan said there were “very substantial difficulties in this area and the criminalisation of the act of purchasing sex might not necessarily minimise sex trafficking”.

Meanwhile, Mr Lenihan announced yesterday the appointment of senior civil servant Marion Walsh as the first head of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit.