A 12-YEAR-OLD Nigerian girl has been taken into State care after being found in a house in north Dublin by detectives investigating suspected people-trafficking.
Her discovery, during a Garda search in Castleknock last Thursday morning, came after immigration officers were contacted by their counterparts in Northern Ireland in relation to an inquiry into cross-Border trafficking. Homes in counties Louth, Dublin, Meath and Kildare were also searched.
In the North, a 51-year-old man was charged with six counts of facilitating unlawful immigration and is due to appear before Antrim Magistrates Court tomorrow morning.
He was arrested when police searched two houses in Lisburn on Thursday. A man in his late 30s who was also arrested in Lisburn has been released pending a report for the Public Prosecution Service. It is understood those searches led detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to contact the Garda National Immigration Bureau, who then launched follow-up raids south of the Border.
A PSNI spokeswoman stressed the arrests were not directly connected to the discovery of the Nigerian girl but that she was found as a result of the wider investigation.
"During a search at Castleknock a 12-year-old Nigerian girl was discovered by An Garda Síochána and has been taken into social care in the Republic of Ireland," she said. "It should be noted that the charges do not relate to this specific discovery, although the searches were carried out as part of the Police Service of Northern Ireland investigation."
A Garda spokesman confirmed the girl was in HSE care and that the investigation was ongoing.
Meanwhile, new protections for victims of trafficking came into force on Saturday which allow for a 45-day "recovery and reflection" period to be granted to those believed to have been trafficked into the State.
The measure is included in the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill currently making its way through the Oireachtas, but has been given legal effect with the introduction of a temporary administrative framework.
This was done so that the new protections would take effect on the same day as a new law outlawing human trafficking for the first time. The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 makes the trafficking of adults and children for labour or sexual exploitation illegal under Irish law and criminalises the use of services of victims of trafficking.
Some trafficking victims have in the past been imprisoned or deported, but under the new framework they will be given permission to remain in the State for 45 days.
This is to allow them time to recover, to escape the influence of the alleged perpetrators of the trafficking and to take an informed decision as to whether to assist gardaí.
However, organisations such as Ruhama, which works to help women involved in prostitution, are critical of the stipulation that any extension of the 45-day period is dependent on co-operation with the Garda Síochána.
Last week, a US state department report into human trafficking for the first time named Ireland as a destination country for victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labour.