Women trafficked into Ireland for prostitution trapped in gang ‘debt bondage’

Women smuggled into the Republic for prostitution have been trapped in “debt bondage” by crime gangs who refuse to “release” them until they pay over large sums of money, a senior Garda officer who investigates organised prostitution has said.

The trafficking of women for sexual exploitation was a “huge problem”, he said. It was an issue in “every county in Ireland”.

The comments by Det Supt Derek Maguire came as gardaí revealed they had targeted gangs involved in the organised prostitution trade in two “days of action” in 16 Garda divisions across the country. Five search warrants were executed against men suspected of organising prostitution and 46 men suspected of having paid for sex at brothels were identified.

A total of 112 women working as prostitutes were spoken to and given safety advice by gardaí during what were described as “safeguarding checks”. The operation was carried out last Thursday and Friday in all of the six Garda divisions in Dublin as well as in Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Longford, Galway, Kildare, Donegal, Cavan and Louth.

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In one of the premises visited, some €3,000 and $500 was seized from a man suspected of organising prostitution in the southeast. There were also a number of follow-up incidents during which women working as prostitutes reported crimes and their concerns to gardaí in the days after the two-day operation.

One sex worker reported she had been assaulted by a client and a Garda investigation was commenced. Another sex worker contacted gardaí in the east and reported her concerns about a number of women working for a “pimp” who was controlling their earnings. That location has since been identified and an inquiry has begun.

In the southwest, a sex worker contacted gardaí expressing her concern for several women she believed had been trafficked into the Republic for sexual exploitation, with an investigation begun.

Det Supt Maguire, of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau and who leads the Organised Prostitution Investigation Unit, said: “If they are victims of trafficking they can be moved from one brothel to another around the country and we have investigations ongoing where people have been moved to eight, nine different counties around the country.

“Sometimes all their [money is] taken, sometimes it’s half. But a figure is usually given to them that they have to pay the trafficker back before they can be released. That’s usually a notional figure so it continues to go on and on. It’s like debt bondage really.”

He added that the gangs involved in organised prostitution in the Republic were transnational and often trafficked women “from their own country” into the State. The gangs were from “Africa, South America, eastern Europe, Asia” and victims were from a “broad range of countries and continents”.

While those being exploited were predominantly women, gardaí had also encountered and male and transgender victims.

More than 400 texts were sent by the Garda on Tuesday to mobile phone numbers used as contact points on sex worker online advertisements. These messages – in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian – aimed to reassure the women, who were often from countries where the police are deeply distrusted, that they could contact the authorities in the Republic without fear of prosecution. Under legislation introduced in the Republic in 2017, selling sex was decriminalised but it is an offence to pay for sex and to organise prostitution.

He and his colleague Det Chief Supt Colm Noonan were speaking to mark the Garda’s participation in “16 days of activism” which began on November 25th, the international day of the elimination of violence against women. The international days of activism period runs until human rights day on December 10th.

During that period gardaí are placing a special focus on reaching out to victims of domestic and gender-based violence, and investigating those crimes, as well as focusing on organised prostitution and the human trafficking associated with it.

Det Chief Supt Noonan, who heads the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, said during the 16-day period the Garda was “reaching out” in 16 languages to communities across Ireland and “offering the support, reassurance and protection to victims of sexual, domestic and gender-based violence”.