More than 70 women have been victims of sex-trafficking into Ireland in the past six years, according to a report to be published at NUI Galway today.
Most of the women have been forced or coerced into their journeys and are believed to have ended up working in private brothels in various parts of the State, the report by Dr Eilis Ward, of NUI Galway, and Dr Gillian Wylie, of the Irish School of Ecumenics at TCD, found.
Some 36 of the individuals making up the 76 cases have had no recent contact with agencies or individuals, while 14 were repatriated, 12 remain in the Irish asylum system and 10 were granted leave to remain in Ireland or were given refugee status. The largest national grouping identified was Nigerian, at 19 cases, followed by Russian, at eight cases. The majority of the women were brought in from eastern Europe, but a number came from Africa, Asia and South America.
The research for the report - the first study of its kind here - was carried out over a two-year period and involved a survey of agencies and organisations working in areas of prostitution, violence against women and migration.
Serious gaps in service provision and in supports for such women are highlighted in the study and it also points to the lack of a legislative framework. This has created an ad hoc situation with "no clear policy or guidelines as to what happens women who have been identified as sex-trafficked", the authors say.
They cite one instance in which a woman found by gardaí in a private brothel in Sligo was brought to Mountjoy jail. "This effectively criminalised her for an act in which she was an extremely vulnerable victim of a serious crime," the authors point out.
They are calling for priority to be given to the needs of trafficked women in the recently-published Government Bill which deals with sex-trafficking. The authors note that such is the nature of the sex trade and the nature of the criminality involved that the true number of women brought here in this way may never be known.
The study shows that co-operation has developed among the State and non-State sectors, but it suggests that this may be confined to the Dublin area. "Given that many of the women identified in the research ended up outside Dublin, this is a cause for concern," the authors state.