Children as young as eight being recruited by criminal gangs to deliver drugs and collect debts

Report found about 1,000 young people under the age of 17 are at risk of being recruited and used by criminal networks for the purpose of organised crime.

Children as young as eight being criminally exploited and intimidated to deliver drugs and collect debts is a lived reality for many families across Ireland, it has been claimed.

Mecpaths, which works to counter child-trafficking, said all organisations working directly with young people must be alert to the signs of exploitation of children.

It made the plea in the wake of the publication of a Garda Inspectorate report which highlighted that children as young as eight years old are being exploited by criminal networks. The report said such exploitation “typically follows a grooming process where they are gradually coerced into criminal exploitation". 

This typically involves the manipulation, coercion, trafficking and exploitation of children and young people for many purposes such as drug-dealing, child-trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Mecpaths network and communications manager JP O’Sullivan said the report highlighted what the organisation has been hearing in communities.

"The recognition that children as young as eight are being criminally exploited and intimidated to deliver drugs and collect debts may seem far removed or far-fetched for anyone not familiar with the field of child-trafficking in Ireland, but it is a lived reality for many children and many families across Ireland," he said.

He said over the past eight years, the area of child criminal exploitation had been extending its reach from beyond urban settings to communities, villages and towns around the country.

“Many community stakeholders call for a shift in Garda training to recognize signs of child exploitation within criminal networks. Mecpaths calls for this lens-shift across all organisations working directly with young people — to recognise victimhood, to see the exploitation, to change the language of 'criminality' and 'offending' and to see the child that stands behind the presenting behaviour." 

The Garda Inspectorate report revealed a survey of garda juvenile liaison officers found about 1,000 young people under the age of 17 are at risk of being recruited and used by criminal networks for the purpose of organised crime.

On Monday, Mecpaths launched a network of concerned professionals across the country to respond to child trafficking.

Mr O’Sullivan said: “Membership stretches from the north-inner city of Dublin to rural pockets and communities in Kerry. North, south, east and west. The experiences of social workers, youth workers and community workers echo the disturbing reality of this growing pandemic of child exploitation."

“Realities would demonstrate that not only do few adults self-identify as victims of criminal exploitation at the hands of these groups, but children, as victims, rarely self-identify — lured into criminality with the promise of the tracksuit, the money, the status, the connection and the visibility which many of them do not receive from elsewhere."