'Urgent need' to reform laws on trafficking

There is an urgent need for the enactment of laws recognising the problem of human trafficking for forced labour, it was argued yesterday.

Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney said he had been assured by the Taoiseach last year that legislation on human trafficking was one of the "top two" priorities for the Department of Justice and would be brought forward by the end of last year.

However, when he raised the issue in the Dáil yesterday, he was told that this would not happen until early summer, "which quite frankly is rubbish because we're having an election in May," Mr Coveney said.

Acknowledging that trafficking to Ireland was a relatively new phenomenon and that "Fine Gael is no bastion of compassion on this issue either", Mr Coveney said that "if we don't have a definition for trafficking in Irish law, then we make it difficult for gardaí to bring charges against people involved in trafficking."

He said it was "a great shame" that the issue had been "pushed off the priority list" and suggested there was reluctance to broach the issue before the election. "God forbid the Government will be seen to be soft on immigration."

He was speaking at the launch of a report on trafficking for forced labour, other than for sexual exploitation, published yesterday by the Migrants Rights Centre. The report is based on the experiences of migrants, non-governmental bodies, trade unions and law enforcement officials.

Siobhán O'Donoghue, director of the centre, said common features of trafficking victims' experiences were coercion, deception, debt bondage and threats.

"The person finds himself or herself forced into a situation not of their choice.

"Maybe they originally agreed to come to Ireland on a work permit to work in a factory and found that they were working on a mushroom farm in totally different circumstances, where they feel they've very little choice but to stay," she said.

"There's deception, about the nature of the work and the conditions under which they're going to be working. [ It's] where there's control, [ where] a person is not allowed to leave the workplace, where they're told not to talk to any local people.

"A common enough feature would be having passports and legal documents held." Though physical abuse was not unknown, more common were threats of being deported or of family members at home being attacked, she said.

The report recommends urgent legislative reform. It notes that the Department of Justice is preparing legislation that will transpose into Irish law EU directives and UN commitments on trafficking, including trafficking for forced labour, "but they are not in a position to say when the legislation will be enacted."

"The Criminal Law (Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Offences) Bill 2006, intended to give effect to such commitments, was published during 2006 but unfortunately in its current form the Bill does not address trafficking for forced labour," the authors state.

Prof Ronnie Munck of DCU, who took part in the study, said there was a need for better preventive measures, protection for victims and deeper understanding of the nature and extent of the problem.

He recommended the creation of an anti-trafficking agency, better legal protection for migrant workers and their families and further empowerment of migrant communities.