Dozens of victims of human trafficking working in the sex industry in Cork at any time 

LAST year, members of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau freed 53 people who had been trafficked into Ireland and enslaved.

The bureau’s top gardaí said there are “multiples” of that number of trafficking victims here.

“In every town, in every city, in every village in Ireland, there is a woman who is offering sex for sale, and the vast majority of them are victims of human trafficking,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Colm Noonan.

“At any one time, it could be well over 100 in Cork, being advertised online as we speak”.

Head of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, Det Chief Supt Noonan spoke with The Echo after a conference on human trafficking, which was held in Cork last week.

The theme of that conference was ‘human trafficking is hidden in plain sight’, and it focused on sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, forced criminality, and victim survivors’ stories.

Ireland is a destination country for human trafficking, with victims brought here, and with the economy at nearly full employment, trafficked people are also being forced into labour-intensive work across multiple sectors.

“It’s not just the nail bars, the car washes, the service industry,” said Det Chief Supt Noonan. “We’re also seeing exploitation happening within the agri-food business, within the agriculture business itself, within manufacturing across the board, in the forestry industries, across rural and urban Ireland.

“Every one of us is dealing with and has services from victims of human trafficking in our day-to-day lives.”

Detective Superintendent Derek Maguire, who works with Det Chief Supt Noonan, said that of trafficking victims in Ireland being forced into prostitution, Nigeria, China, and Brazil are regular source countries, with Romania the main European source.

'Loverboy method'

Many of the victims are tricked into believing they are in meaningful relationships, heading to a better life, something known to law enforcement agencies as “the Loverboy method” of recruiting victims.

Once they reach Ireland, their phones and identity documents are taken and they are forced to sell themselves for sexual services against their will, which Det Chief Supt Noonan said is rape.

“We heard from a survivor who described it as exactly that, and this is over several years, every day, 10, 12 men, who are purchasing sex, but essentially raping her,” he said.

“She put a figure on it of being raped 5,000 or 6,000 times.”

While the purchase of sex is illegal in Ireland, Det Supt Maguire estimates there could be 1,000 people working in the sex industry every day on the island of Ireland, the vast majority victims of trafficking, moving around every one to two weeks.

“The term used is ‘pop-up brothel’, so a house, or an apartment or a hotel room or an Airbnb can become a brothel for a couple of weeks and then they move on,” he said.

Sex is sold at a menu of different prices, starting from €80 to €100, with some victims offered for sex without protection, which is more expensive.

Victims forced into prostitution are presenting at emergency departments with serious health conditions, after traffickers have used controlled drugs or prescription medication to control and abuse them.

One trafficker used a combination of ketamine and anti-psychotic drugs to make a victim work harder, and without protection, something Det Supt Maguire said has had “devastating physical effects upon her health”.

“Whatever worst-case scenario you can think of a trafficker, they will do it to try and control their victim,” he added.

They cited survivor testimonies of women being rated on websites, with a bad review resulting in assault by the trafficker, or a good review saying: “She was really into it”.

“She’s not into it, she’s doing this for money and the money is going to a trafficker,” said Det Chief Supt Noonan.

“We want to get the message out there to young men to think before they start using the services of prostitutes, because they do not want to do this.”

Labour exploitation 

In labour exploitation cases, the detectives said, victims don’t always realise they are victims, and they cited the case of one victim.

“What was happening to him was horrific, and he admitted that these hours were killing him, working 15, 16 hours a day, but he said: ‘It’s better than what I had’,” Det Supt Maguire said.

In many cases, Det Chief Supt Noonan added, bank accounts are set up, and taxes are paid, but money is not going to the person doing the work.

“Employers have a social and a moral responsibility to make sure that the people working for them and in their supply chain aren’t victims of human trafficking, that they are legitimately able to benefit from their wages, that they’re in reasonable accommodation, that they are not victims of human trafficking.

“They might have very poor English, they might be arriving into the car park outside the business every morning with five or six other people. If that’s ringing a bell with you, if that person has never been seen down at the shops, or doesn’t interact with the sports club or isn’t going out for a pint, you need to get in touch with the gardaí.”

Det Supt Maguire added: “We need the communities that we represent to be our eyes and ears out there, and it’s really important for us to extend our reach out into the communities and say: ‘If something looks wrong, it usually is, so please report it’.”

He described how in one case, a call from a member of the public led to the rescue of a man kept locked in a shed in a remote location, watering cannabis plants. He shared the shed with dogs, using a bucket for a toilet, and had no washing facilities, no heat, and no bed.

“He was eight weeks locked in that shed. The traffickers would drop the food at the door just to keep him alive,” Det Supt Maguire said. “He came from Vietnam to Ireland, four years it took him. His journey was just incredible. He was exploited all along the way by different people.

“The only time that man was allowed out was to attend to a dog, because the traffickers were gone, and someone saw him playing with a dog, where he shouldn’t have been.”

Public urged to report concerns 

The UN estimates there are 49.6m victims of trafficking annually, with $239bn generated every year.

“Drugs are a commodity, that, once used is destroyed,” said Det Chief Supt Noonan. “Human beings are abused and trafficked over and over and over. A human being can be exploited repeatedly.”

In 2023, the bureau rescued 53 people who had been trafficked into Ireland and enslaved, up from 44 in 2022, and the detectives are confident they will see a further increase this year.

“There are multiples of that 53 out there, and that’s why we need them to know they can come forward and we need the public to be our eyes and ears out there, to know what the indicators are and to report their suspicions to us,” Det Supt Maguire said.

Ireland has so far only had one successful conviction for human trafficking, but the bureau has several ongoing investigations and a number of cases currently before the courts.

The maximum sentence for human trafficking in Ireland is life imprisonment.

• For more on the Garda National Protective Services Bureau’s work, see blueblindfold.ie.
• If you have any suspicion that someone may be the victim of trafficking, sexual exploitation or labour exploitation, contact blueblindfold@garda.ie, or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666111, or call 999/111.