Social media and online gaming used to 'target, recruit, and control children'

Another stakeholder said: 'Many kids will talk about being contacted by a stranger, or being in a game like Roblox, and somebody saying they wanted to see them naked and share their bed.' Picture: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

Many child victims of human trafficking are going unidentified in Ireland, according to a new report which says that child victims are being identified first as criminals involved in activities including the movement of drugs.

The report from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), published on Wednesday, says that social media, online communication tools, and gaming environments are being used to “target, recruit, and control children”.

IHREC said it is concerned that while 28 children were identified as victims of trafficking in Ireland in 2024 and 2025, none were Irish. 

The commission is the special rapporteur on human trafficking and says that the lack of Irish children among the identified child victims of trafficking here “highlights concerns that Irish children may be particularly vulnerable to under-identification”.

The commission says that children “involved in drug distribution or other criminal activity may initially be viewed as an offender rather than as a child who has been groomed, coerced, or exploited".

Of the 20 child victims identified in 2022-2024, the report says 13 were believed to have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, with the majority of them girls.

The report states that the Laurels Clinic at Children’s Health Ireland, which provides a paediatric medical service for Leinster, Cavan, and Monaghan, identified 24 children as potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation since 2023.

The report says that healthcare professionals have raised concerns with IHREC about having encountered suspected child victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, particularly children in care.

“Stakeholders spoke about their concerns that professionals involved in child protection and combatting child trafficking for sexual exploitation seemed to be reluctant or unable to address the problem or that the current systems were inadequate,” states the report. 

As part of the research, interviews were carried out among a range of stakeholders who felt that children need to be equipped to navigate the online world.

Technology used to 'ensnare children' 

The report says that some stakeholders felt that Ireland and Europe have been too slow in addressing the use of technology “in the recruitment, exploitation, and trafficking of children, noting how organised crime groups and individuals were very adept at harnessing technology to ensnare children”.

One stakeholder said: “There are a lot of vulnerabilities for children online, and this access that bad actors have to children via technology has made grooming so much easier. 

"Historically, grooming a child would have taken a long period of time, building that trust, the manipulation. This is about casting the net as wide as possible and seeing what comes back.” 

Another stakeholder said: “Many kids will talk about being contacted by a stranger, or being in a game like Roblox, and somebody saying they wanted to see them naked and share their bed.” 

The commission is calling for policy and practice to keep up with the developments in human trafficking by putting the national referral mechanism for identification of victims in place, which would allow a number of government departments and agencies would become competent authorities to also identify victims of traffickers. Currently, trafficking victims can only be identified by gardaí.

It is also calling for the implementation of an EU directive which was to be transposed into Irish law in July, which would have included forced marriage, surrogacy exploitation, and illegal adoption into the definition of exploitation.