24-hour hotline to help crack down on human trafficking
The Department of Justice said it was seeking suitably qualified personnel to steer a national awareness campaign to run for three weeks in October.
The winning tender will not only spearhead a nationwide advertising campaign, but will also operate a 24-hour telephone hotline for the confidential reporting of suspicions of trafficking for the duration of the three week campaign.
The campaign is likely to mirror a recent initiative in Britain entitled the “blue blindfold” scheme.
Launched late last year, that campaign sought to raise awareness among male sex buyers of the exploitation and trafficking involved in prostitution, and featured posters and advertising depicting ordinary people wearing blue blindfolds and seemingly oblivious to the exploitation of those around them.
The Department of Justice has secured permission for the use of the blue blindfold motif, while the campaign will stress that human trafficking can happen anywhere and that people should not close their eyes to the possibility of it occurring in apparently everyday situations.
The winning tender will also be responsible for the distribution of information packs for the campaign to 475 governmental, non- governmental and private sector organisations. The packs will also be distributed to 725 Garda stations around the country.
The campaign is being driven by the department’s anti-human trafficking unit and follows a number of recent political initiatives.
In May, the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, announced that the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 had been signed into law. It came into effect in June, while last month the Dáil committee justice, equality, defence and women’s rights adopted an amendment to proposed new immigration legislation to help protect child victims of trafficking.
The US Trafficking in Persons Report, released last month, also recommended that Ireland “implements a visible trafficking-demand reduction campaign”.
All this followed criticism of the Government’s Immigration Bill, which the opposition claimed would do nothing to help the hundreds of unaccompanied children who have gone missing in Ireland in recent years.
Earlier this year the Irish Examiner revealed how a woman had been arrested and charged in her native Moldova on suspicion of trafficking people into Ireland, though the gardaí later said they had no information regarding the case.
The Government also hopes to be able to ratify next year its signing-up to the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
