Call for crackdown on child trafficking

A Cavan Councillor is calling on the government to crack down on child trafficking offences by funding a new cross-border agency specifically tasked with tackling the inhumane and illicit trade.

Human trafficking, says Aontú’s Sarah O’Reilly, is happening “very much hidden in plain sight in Ireland” and called on the Minister for Children and Integration to resign over the issue.

Speaking at the December monthly meeting of Cavan County Council, Cllr O’Reilly tabled a motion on the matter. She claimed that, according to the Department of Justice, just three people have been convicted in the District Courts, despite 1,223 human trafficking related offences coming before them since 2010.

“Of the 207 individuals who came before the courts since 2010, only nine were before the courts for ‘trafficking of an adult’, the remaining 198 were before the courts in relation to the sexual exploitation of children, the detention or trafficking of children for the purposes of sexual exploitation or attempts to do so,” she said.

It is Cllr O’Reilly’s belief that human trafficking is happening “in every town in the country”.

Only last year did the US State Department removed Ireland from its human trafficking watchlist, after the country spent two years on the tier two watchlist.

“It is truly shocking that the primary form of human trafficking in this country is the sexual exploitation of children. Our poor conviction rate in the courts is a cause of national shame,” suggests Cllr O’Reilly.

She also voiced concern about the number of minors going missing from State care each year. “I’m concerned about the Special Emergency Accommodation arrangements for children in State care, and the fact that some unaccompanied minors or separated children, seeking international protection in our country, have wound up homeless,” said Cllr O’Reilly.

She went so far as to state that the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman is “out of his depth and needs to go!”

“A few months ago the Child and Family Agency openly admitted a huge problem of sexual exploitation of children in care. Were this to occur in any other western country, the Minister in charge of the sector would be pressured to resign. We need complete change within the Department and agency, from the top down. The social workers and foster families are doing very difficult work at the coalface, but serious questions remain over what is happening at HQ and in the Department.”

Cllr O’Reilly concluded by saying she feels that governments are “very good at looking back at historic wrongs, but child abuse is happening at a colossal scale right now in Ireland under our noses, and very little seems to be being done about it.”

Sinn Féin’s Paddy McDonald supported the motion said it was worrying that children were being trafficked across the Border into the south from the six counties.

Independent Shane P. O’Reilly meanwhile agreed with Cllr O’Reilly (Aon) that it was a “serious issue” that needs urgent addressing.

He claimed there is an increasing number of people entering Ireland “not vetted”, and the government is unaware of these people’s past history.

Cllr O’Reilly said he was under no doubt that some of those people may have been “trafficked” themselves.

“I’ll probably be called racist or woke for saying this but the problem in the country at the moment is the amount of people coming in. People are coming in and we don’t know.”

He concluded that Ireland had lost its claim to being the country of “100,000 welcomes” because “the country is turning on people looking for asylum because they’re being let down by trying to be best boys in Europe”.