Children trafficked for 'household slavery'

The Garda are beginning to come across cases of children being trafficked into the State for household slavery, a conference was told at the weekend.

Det Supt John O'Driscoll of the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), speaking at a conference hosted by the Law Society entitled Human Trafficking, Modern Slavery?, said trafficking in human beings (THB) was the most challenging type of criminal activity facing the Garda as it was a relatively new crime in the State and it had one of the lowest levels of reporting.

"We depend on people to report crime and in the case of trafficking there are particular difficulties. The victims themselves are often illegally in the State and are in fear of the authorities, so will not come forward. There's the language barrier and we have very limited sources of information from among immigrant communities."

He said a publicity campaign earlier in the year, which included posters providing details of a helpline in several languages, had not yielded much information. "So we have started to take a more proactive approach and officers around the country are being trained to recognise the indicators for THB in their ordinary police work - if for example they are called to a situation of domestic abuse."

He said there were numerous reasons for trafficking - which the conference heard was the "fastest growing form of criminal activity" in Europe - including the sex industry, labour exploitation, human organs and household slavery.

"Household slavery is one which we are beginning to ponder as a big issue. We are seeing cases of children being trafficked in for household slavery. There have been 10 to 15 cases in the past number of years of children being brought in with people who said they were their parents, that we have had concerns about and have actually taken them from the accompanying adults and given them to the care of the HSE. In the cases of some we have had to use DNA evidence to prove they were not the parents."

He said immigration officers in Britain had targeted diplomatic staff in embassies of countries where it was culturally acceptable to have child slaves.

Deirdre Coughlan, an independent researcher, presented research due to be published next month, which she conducted as part of a four-country EU-funded project on trafficking. It is the first in-depth, qualitative study of its kind conducted here. She interviewed 15 people who had been trafficked here for labour exploitation, from countries including Bangladesh, the Philippines and Brazil. "Most actually entered the country on legal work permits but it was what happened to them here - the threats, coercion and isolation," she said.

"We need to focus on the outcome of the trafficking . . . rather than the mechanisms of how they get into the country, to really address the issue."

She echoed several speakers when she said "the human rights element needs to be at the centre" of the proposed Immigration and Residency Bill.