NO LINK BETWEEN IMMIGRATION & CRIME?
Vietnamese children are being trafficked to Ireland to work in cannabis grow-houses, as well as for sexual exploitation, MECPATHS has said. MECPATHS stands for Mercy Efforts for Child Protection Against Trafficking with the Hospitality and Services Sector.
The number of IDENTIFIED child victims of human trafficking in Ireland has almost doubled over a two-year period, but the level of detections are likely to be “only the tip of the iceberg”. Unidentified cases most certainly outweigh identified cases.
Figures released by the Department of Justice show 18 minors were identified out of a total of 114 victims of human trafficking last year. This compares to 10 children identified out of 67 victims of human trafficking in 2024.
JP O’Sullivan, of MECPATHS, a not-for-profit organisation that combats child trafficking in Ireland, says “The majority of the children identified over the two-year period would be Vietnamese nationals, brought to Ireland to work in illegal cannabis grow-houses.”
In 2023 five children were identified by the Irish authorities as victims of child trafficking.
“It is great that identification is increasing year-on-year but I believe it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Children are being trafficked here for criminal and sexual exploitation,” he said.
“Children have been trafficked into Ireland as young as 14 for sexual exploitation. We are still not seeing enough Irish data. When we think of human trafficking, we think of people being brought in to Ireland, but it also happens internally. Child trafficking is defined as the ‘recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt’ of a child for the purpose of exploitation.”
Mr O’Sullivan pointed to evidence of some Irish or Irish-based children in care as an example of children being exploited into criminality within Ireland by crime gangs.
In 2023, a study published by University College Dublin highlighted how vulnerable children in residential state care are being groomed by gangs of men for sex. The study identifies that these grooming gangs are similar to Rotherham or Rochdale type gangs (but does not identify ethnicity of perpetrators). Gardai are currently investigating at least 35 cases related to grooming gangs.
Mr O’Sullivan called for mandatory human trafficking training for all Gardaí to help identify victims, as well as a “child specific child referral system”.
“The State should have a national referral mechanism, an umbrella of safety for people to go to Gardaí,” he said.
A NOTE ON ORGAN HARVESTING:
Based on official reports from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) and An Garda Síochána, there has been no CONFIRMED cases of a child being trafficked to Ireland for the purpose of organ harvesting.
In its 2023 National Anti-Trafficking Report, the IHREC noted that in 2022, for the first time in Ireland, a single case of suspected trafficking for organ removal was recorded.
The report does not explicitly state the age of the individual, but it notes that the majority of child trafficking victims identified that year (a total of five children) were trafficked for sexual exploitation, not organs.
The Status: "Suspected" means the case was flagged for investigation under trafficking laws, but it does not mean a crime was proven to have occurred or that an "organ harvesting" operation was uncovered.
Modern trafficking in Ireland predominantly involves sexual exploitation (approx. 55%) and labour exploitation (approx. 38%). Organ harvesting is classified as a "novel form of exploitation".
