'Significant increase' in trafficking of women

A “SIGNIFICANT increase” in the number of women trafficked into Ireland for sexual exploitation has been recorded by an organisation that offers support to women working in the sex industry.

Ruhama says it helped 44 women last year who had been trafficked, some 33 of whom were new referrals. One of the women was deemed to have been smuggled.

“Most of the women we worked with in 2007 were between 20 and 30 years of age,” said Ruhama spokeswoman Gerardine Rowley. “However, we worked with four females who were minors, three of which were trafficked into Ireland and were from Africa.”

The highest proportion (13) of trafficked women with whom Ruhama worked were from Nigeria. Three were from Zimbabwe, and two each were from Congo, Malawi and Cameroon.

There was one each from Eritrea, Burundi, Kenya, Zambia, Albania, Somalia, Thailand, Brazil, Romania and Lithuania. Five of the women had been trafficked into other countries, but had come to Ireland for help.

Ms Rowley said the figures were important “because they most likely show a significant increase in the number of women being trafficked into this country for the purpose of sexual exploitation”.

“Ruhama is a small organisation, based in Dublin, so understandably we would have had contact with very few of the overall population of trafficked women.”

Ms Rowley said it was also important to bear in mind that it would be almost impossible for most women who have been trafficked in for sexual exploitation to contact Ruhama.

More than half of the women (18 of the 27) referred to Ruhama who had been trafficked into Ireland had been held outside Dublin, with Kilkenny, Waterford, Sligo, Athlone, Dundalk, Monaghan and Donegal among the locations.

The trafficking of women for sexual exploitation became an offence on June 7th under the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008.