53 victims identified in Ireland, ‘sharp rise’ in female victims in 2023 – The Irish Times

In 2023, around 53 victims of human trafficking were officially identified in Ireland, including five children. According to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), there was also a “sharp increase” in the number of female victims.

While the number of victims overall has increased by 26 percent since 2022, EINEC's third National Report on Combating Human Trafficking found a “sharp” 33 percent increase in female victims across all forms of trafficking.

In total, 42 female victims were identified (79 percent), up from 27 in 2022, while the remaining 11 were male (21 percent), up from 15 the year before, said the report released Wednesday.

In 2023, five children, four of them girls, were identified as victims. Two girls were trafficked for sexual exploitation, while the remaining three children were trafficked for criminal activities.

Since 2013, 566 victims of human trafficking have been identified, including 44 children, representing 8 percent of all victims.

While this is well below the EU average of 15 percent, EINEC believes this is due to the lack of sufficiently robust systems to identify child victims of trafficking.

The total number of victims is likely to be underestimated by around 40 percent, due to the “hidden” nature of the crime and the complexity of identifying and confirming victims, the EINEC said.

The majority of victims (28) were trafficked for sexual exploitation, while 16 victims were trafficked for labour exploitation. The remaining nine victims were trafficked for criminal purposes.

Overall, there was a slight decrease in the number of identified male victims in 2023, including in the area of ​​human trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation, which is mainly carried out by men, from twelve in 2022 to eight in 2023.

A more notable change was recorded in the number of people identified as victims of trafficking for criminal purposes, increasing from zero in 2021 to nine in 2023, now representing 17 percent of all trafficking victims.

Six female victims were trafficked for criminal activities. They are the first female victims of this type of exploitation since 2019.

“The situation in Ireland is comparable to that in the EU, where new and less common forms of exploitation such as forced marriages and illegal adoptions are on the rise,” the report says.

More than half of all victims in 2023 (28) were from Africa. Another 15 were from Europe and eight from Asia. The remaining two victims were from Latin America.

The report found that prostitution, escort agencies, the porn industry and massage parlors pose a high risk of sexual exploitation.

Sectors at particularly high risk of labour exploitation include agriculture, construction, seasonal work, food processing, hospitality, cleaning and domestic work.

Although new laws came into force in July that will make it easier to identify victims, the EINEC warned of “gaps”, particularly related to child trafficking, and recommended a separate mechanism for identifying, referring and assisting child victims.

It also reaffirmed the need for equal treatment of victims regardless of their nationality, immigration circumstances or eligibility for international protection, as well as legal protection of victims from prosecution.

Separately, to combat the upward trend of technology-enabled trafficking, the EINEC recommended national “demand-led” campaigns, particularly targeting young men as “potential buyers”.

The organisation also recommended a revision of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Law and expressed concern that insufficient time and attention had been given to the State's obligation to prevent and combat exploitative surrogacy, which the organisation described as “the most worrying new form of human trafficking”.

Forms of human trafficking and exploitation that go beyond sexual and labour exploitation are increasing across the European Union, it said. Examples cited include forced marriage, illegal adoption and surrogacy.