A girl who gardaí suspect was trafficked into the country this week under the identity of a male child of a similar age had her head shaved and was dressed in boy's clothes.
The three-year-old was presented as a boy at Dublin Airport by a 34-year-old Nigerian woman claiming to be her mother, along with a 16-year-old girl, according to immigration gardaí.
The woman's passport had her two children named on it, a boy aged four and a 16-year-old girl. Members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau discovered that the children travelling with the woman on the flight from Heathrow Airport last Wednesday were not those identified in the passport.
The children were brought to the Children's Hospital in Temple Street, where the correct gender of the younger child was discovered after she was examined by a doctor. Both children have been placed in health board care.
Members of the Immigration Bureau visited the woman's house in Leixlip, Co Kildare, yesterday morning and discovered the two actual children named on her passport, a 16-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. The woman has residence status in Ireland and has three other children.
A Garda spokesman said the woman was arrested yesterday and questioned by gardaí in Lucan.