Brothel raids - Victim must get equal thought

THE criminal justice system has often been a cruel place for victims.

It is only in recent years that their voices have been allowed to be heard in court and recognition given to their needs, and only in recent weeks that the Director of Public Prosecutions has conceded they sometimes deserve answers to their questions about the decisions his office makes.

These are all welcome, if belated, developments, but they do little for a particular kind of victim whose plight has come into sharp focus in the past few days.

The trafficked women who were “rescued” from brothels across the country during the impressive joint Garda, PSNI and British police operation are no doubt glad to be free from the thugs who brought them into the country for use as sex slaves, but the truth is they have almost as much to fear from their liberation as they did from their captivity.

Despite promises from the Department of Justice that protections would be put in place for such victims, it is clear now that little thought has been given to what that means. In other EU countries, it means the provision of safe accommodation, medical care and a sympathetic ear from immigration authorities, but the department used the vague description “recovery and reflection period” cleverly as it allows it to be ambiguous about what it offers.

Trafficking victims are in a uniquely difficult position because, as illegal immigrants, they are also law breakers. They can apply for permission to stay here under normal asylum procedures but, coming mainly from poor, but reasonably stable, areas like eastern Europe and South America, they have little prospect of convincing the authorities they are under threat of persecution back home. If they leave, or are returned home, they risk the wrath of the traffickers who arranged their passage abroad and await full payment for their trouble, face shame among their families who often believe they went overseas to work in shops and restaurants, and must endure the same poverty that drove them to put their trust in the traffickers in the first place.

If they stay, they face pressure to give evidence against the pimps and brothel keepers in the knowledge their safety can not be guaranteed. Bail laws are liberal here and defendants awaiting trial are often liberal in dispensing threats against witnesses.

For the moment, however, the support comes almost exclusively from charity. The Ruhama organisation works with women in and escaping prostitution, but it is a small charity with modest funding and a cause that can be difficult to promote because of the covert nature of the abuses it tries to confront. Quite rightly, much of the discussion that results from this week’s raids and arrests will centre on the need for more co-operation between police forces in Europe and further afield, so that the trafficker in one country who supplies women to a pimp in another country, who advertises his business on websites in a third and attracts business from a fourth, finds no legal loophole or policing weakness to exploit.

But law enforcement is only half the job. Assisting the victims is equally important and unless equal thought is given to them, they risk being victimised twice over.