Ms Ellen Creedon:

Do you know the number to call if you suspect or discover that a person has been trafficked? Good afternoon, my name is Ellen Creedon and I am part of the young social innovators group which produced the report "Life Leeches - Trafficking Changes Lives" and which comes from Scoil Phobail Bhéara, Castletownbere, County Cork. We are 18 transition year students who volunteered to compile a report on this topic and we are very determined and passionate in terms of making a difference in respect of the issue to which it refers.

Trafficking in human beings is a form of modern-day slavery. It can be rooted in poverty, poor education, lack of opportunities, gender discrimination, social and political violence and demand for services. Victims are often lured away from their homes with promises of better jobs. Instead, they are forced into dangerous, illegal or abusive work. For the purposes of our project, we set out to learn about human trafficking and to educate our peers and the community about it. We set out to raise awareness of the topic locally, nationally and internationally. We hope to use our research and make recommendations on the issue to the media, the Government and the travel and hospitality sectors and education bodies. We want to be agents for change in order that we might in some way make a difference. We discovered that both adults' and our peers' level of knowledge or awareness of the scale of this issue is poor.

Only 14% of our peers surveyed were interested in the topic, while 42% of adults surveyed said they were. We decided that we wanted to do something about this.

Human trafficking is often hidden and forgotten about and people do not realise the extent of trafficking into, out of and within Ireland. As the members probably know, in 2012 in Ireland, the Department of Justice and Equality dealt with 48 cases of victims of human trafficking. Of these, 39 were cases of sexual exploitation, six were cases of labour exploitation and three were uncategorised; 31 of those involved were female, 17 were male, 25 were adults and 23 were minors. Of these 23 minors, 19 were involved in sexual exploitation.

The life of a victim is never really profiled in detail and people are not exposed to the effects on the victim, how much they have suffered and how to identify a victim of human trafficking. Human trafficking ruins lives before they have even begun. Some people are simply born at the wrong time in the wrong place and into the wrong families. Ireland is a destination, a source and a transit country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour. Irish people have been trafficked for labour in Australia and for prostitution in the Netherlands.

It is estimated that 27 million people worldwide are trafficked each year and 2.4 million people throughout the world are lured into forced labour as a result of human trafficking. Women and girls account for about 80% of the detected victims while child trafficking accounts for about 15% to 20%. Sexual exploitation accounts for about 80% of the detected cases. In 30% of the countries where the gender of the offender was known, more women were convicted for human-trafficking-related offences than men. An estimated 2.5 million people are in forced labour, including sexual exploitation, at any given time as a result of human trafficking. The majority of trafficking victims are between the ages of 18 and 24 years.

Human trafficking affects every country in the world, even if it is to varying degrees. It affects every continent and every type of economy. Every country is affected, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination of victims.