Irish Examiner view: Culpability extends to exploitative customers

ur outrage must also extend to the people whose money, indifference, or wilful ignorance make trafficking worthwhile

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that more than 27m people worldwide are trapped in forced labour, including sex work, on any given day. File picture: Gilles Sabrie/Corbis

Our report on Monday on how Brazilian women are being lured to Ireland with the promise of a better life, only to find themselves forced into prostitution, will have appalled readers. Detective Superintendent Derek Maguire of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau said that, within hours of arriving in this country, women were being given targets for the number of men to whom they would have to provide sexual services per day. 

The fact that women have been targeted through church groups makes the victims’ betrayal even more grotesque.

Human trafficking is a global problem. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that more than 27m people worldwide are trapped in forced labour, including sex work, on any given day. Almost a quarter of trafficking victims are women and girls exploited in the commercial sex industry, while others are forced to work in sectors such as agriculture, domestic work, and services. 

Repulsive and illegal though it is, human trafficking persists because of the enormous sums of money it generates. An ILO report put annual profits from trafficking and forced labour at $236bn (€206bn) in 2024. Forced commercial sexual exploitation accounted for more than 70% of profits.

These profits are only possible because there is a demand for the ‘product’. Criminal gangs may organise human trafficking, but they are not the only ones who are culpable. Every trafficked man, woman, and child finds himself or herself in that nightmare because of a market created by others.

Traffickers of course bear the primary criminal responsibility, but others create the demand. The people who pay for sex cannot plausibly claim ignorance that the women involved may be victims of coercion or human trafficking. Property owners who turn a blind eye to obvious signs that their properties are being used for sexual exploitation facilitate the exploitation. Employers who pay impossibly low wages to vulnerable migrants are effectively participating in forced labour. People do not have to be a member of a criminal organisation to become essential to its activities.

The scale of the problem in Ireland may be impossible to quantify. What is beyond dispute is that criminal networks would not be bringing vulnerable people here unless Ireland offered a profitable market. If we are serious about ending this gross exploitation of fellow human beings, we must think beyond the traffickers. Our outrage must also extend to the people whose money, indifference, or wilful ignorance make their crimes worthwhile.

Lessons in phone etiquette

It won’t make it into anyone’s top 10 problems, but loud music, videos, and conversations emanating from other people’s phones must surely rank among the great irritants of modern life. What may be a minor inconvenience if the
unwilling listener is able to walk away, becomes a real aggravation if the listener is trapped on a train, bus, or other mode of public transport close to the offending device.

Some countries have responded with rules and hefty fines. In England, the Liberal Democrats are pressing for a £1,000 penalty to combat the rising trend of people playing music and videos aloud on public transport without headphones. 

Here, passengers can be fined €100 for listening to music or watching games without earphones on the country’s trains. But the problem persists, and it is clear regulation can only go so far.

Perhaps what is really needed is a renewed sense of etiquette about phone use in shared public spaces. It may seem an old-fashioned word, but even Debretts, that august authority on manners, reminds us that good manners are just about being aware of our surroundings, considering the people around us, and having regard for their comfort.

Society has yet to settle on the proper etiquette for phone use in public spaces. Anyone who regularly travels by public transport will know that older passengers, whose manners are otherwise impeccable, are just as capable of inflicting their speakerphone calls or FaceTime conversations on an unwilling audience.

No one expects complete silence on their bus or train journey, but everyone has the right to travel without becoming an involuntary ‘beneficiary’ of someone else’s entertainment or conversation. Headphones are no longer supplied automatically with every phone, but they are not expensive and are widely available. Train and bus journeys would become infinitely more pleasant if everyone agreed to use them.

Having a ball

A decision by Cork County Council on an application to turn the former Youghal Carpets factory into padel courts is eagerly awaited, not just by the people of Youghal, but by fans of the fast-growing sport. The proposed development would see what was once a factory, and later a warehouse, given a new lease of life as a leisure amenity, complete with six padel courts, cafe, and changing facilities.

If approved, it would also bring the number of padel courts in Ireland to almost 300, a remarkable rise given that the country’s first court was built in Dublin just 14 years ago.

The sport’s growth, both here and internationally, has been extraordinary. The International Padel Federation estimates that 35m people now play padel — a cross between tennis and squash — across 150 countries. An estimated 60,000 people play in Ireland, drawn by a game that is accessible to people of all ages, easy to learn, and highly sociable.

There is even talk that padel will be included in the 2032 Olympics.

The accessibility factor is perhaps the game’s big strength. At a time when people are being encouraged to become more active and stay active for longer, the sport offers older adults a low-impact way to exercise as well as to meet friends.

Developments such as the one proposed for Youghal have the potential to offer not just another sports facility, but to support healthier, more connected communities.

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