Human trafficking is modern slave trade

STEVEN KING’S article (July 5) criticising what he terms the ‘crusade’ against human trafficking is undermined by the simple fact that he does not understand what the term means.

The people he refers to, someone who willingly enters Ireland, legally or illegally, to work in the sex industry are not victims of trafficking. Nor do organisations working on this issue describe them as such.

Human trafficking is defined in international law and in domestic Irish law as the forcible transfer of people, including children, against their will for the purposes of labour or sexual exploitation. Since this appalling trade in human beings thrives in the underground, victims are vulnerable to extreme violence by traffickers, pimps and clients.

It is no exaggeration to describe it as a modern day slave trade and Ireland is both a destination point for trafficking, and a route for traffickers attempting to enter Britain.

In 2004 Rose, a 19-year-old girl from eastern Europe, was brought to Ireland by traffickers. She was held in an apartment in a rural Irish town and forced to have sex with as many as 10 men on some days. If she refused, she was beaten. She was denied medical treatment after the beatings or condoms for safe sex.

She was imprisoned there, beaten into submission and sold to any man that could pay the price for more than six months before she could escape.

She is a victim of human trafficking and, despite what Steven King might want to believe, she exists.

Colm O’Gorman

Executive Director

Amnesty International Ireland