European anti-trafficking experts have urged the Irish authorities to improve the identification of human trafficking victims and to review the policy of housing presumed victims in accommodation centres for asylum seekers as a matter of priority.
These are among the main recommendations in the latest report on Ireland by the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts in Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA).
The report looks at Ireland’s compliance with the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention, a legally-binding international treaty which entered into force in Ireland in 2010.
According to official data, 311 people were presumed victims of human trafficking in Ireland from 2012 to 2016. Of those, 197 were female and 94 were children.
However, the GRETA report says that official figures do not reflect the true scale of human trafficking in Ireland due to shortcomings in identifying victims.
The report says that more people – predominantly men – are now being trafficked for the purposes of labour exploitation. GRETA asks the Irish authorities to review the regulations applicable to migrant workers in certain sectors, such as fisheries, home care and domestic work, in order to help prevent this type of trafficking.
The number of convictions for human trafficking in Ireland remains very low. GRETA stresses that a failure to convict people for trafficking leads to a feeling of impunity and undermines efforts to help victims to testify. The report calls on the Irish authorities to ensure that human trafficking offences are investigated and prosecuted effectively, leading to proportionate and dissuasive sanctions.
GRETA also expresses concern that no victims of trafficking have received compensation in Ireland. The report urges the authorities to encourage prosecutors to request compensation orders and to make the state compensation scheme effectively accessible to victims of trafficking.
The GRETA report includes an official response from the Irish authorities.