THE GOVERNMENT could help to prevent women from being trafficked into the State for sexual exploitation by creating a new range of related criminal offences.
The claim was made yesterday by Prof Liz Kelly, a UK expert on trafficking and violence against women, who said the Government had, under the UN Convention on Organised Crime, an obligation to do something about the demand in the State for paid-for sex. “It’s the responsibility of the Irish Government to do something about demand,” she said.
She said a very small minority of men pay for sex, and that “maybe it’s time the men who don’t [do so] stand up and say something to the men who do”.
Asked what the Government might do, she said it could consider emulating Sweden, which has made it illegal to buy sex, or it could encourage a debate in Ireland about buying sex and what it means, and talking to young men about it.
Prof Kelly, of the London Metropolitan University, was in Dublin yesterday to speak to staff from the Immigrant Council of Ireland and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland about trafficking of women for purposes of sexual exploitation.
She said the legislation introduced in many countries around trafficking was such that few effective prosecutions had been mounted.
In many instances recruitment, transportation and exploitation had to be proved, and this was very difficult for a destination country like Ireland.
She suggested prosecutions would be much more likely in destination countries if each individual element of exploitation was criminalised.
This would include making the removal of somebody’s passport, restricting their freedom of movement and debt bonding all illegal in their own right.
“A lot of countries have introduced legislation that complies with the international convention, but it makes evidential requirements extremely high and extremely complicated,” she said.
“My suggestion is that countries of origin focus on the recruitment and transportation bits, and countries of destination focus on the exploitation elements,” she added.
Prof Kelly said human trafficking was a huge problem globally, which was happening in every European country. It is “so hidden” there would never be exact figures on its extent. “We can never have exact figures but we know that it happens and therefore we need to act. The longer you don’t act and say its not really a big problem, the more space you are giving to traffickers to operate under the radar,” she said.