Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 4, line 2, to delete "person;" and substitute the following:

"person, or

(d) exploitation for financial gain;".

This amendment is to ensure that when dealing with human trafficking, we cover all angles and, as I explained on Committee Stage, not only labour exploitation, sexual exploitation or exploitation consisting of the removal of one or more organs of a person. There are other occasions in which people are trafficked and I gave a number of examples on Committee Stage, including exploitation for financial gain. I cited the example of the case in England of a seven year old child, Victoria Climbie, who was trafficked from the Ivory Coast to Europe by her aunt for the purpose of benefit fraud. The aunt had promised Victoria's parents that she would give the little girl a better life and educational opportunities but in February 2000, she died in a hospital in England having suffered many months of horrific neglect, physical abuse and degrading treatment. She was only eight years of age. It was to become one of the worst cases of physical child abuse and exploitation ever documented in Britain, and probably beyond. Victoria's aunt and her partner received life sentences for her murder. That is an example of somebody being trafficked for financial gain.

In a recent case it was alleged that financial gain was behind the trafficking of children from Chad by a French NGO. That case is still being investigated but it is alleged that hundreds of children were being trafficked from Chad and Sudan — basically, from the Darfur region — to France supposedly for the purpose of adoption. Some 300 families in France had seemingly paid money up-front for these children.

This amendment tries to cover that type of eventuality. Although benefit fraud in itself is illegal and somebody could be prosecuted for that, the trafficking of a child or any human being for the purpose of financial gain should be covered by this legislation. It is a minor enough provision which, hopefully, would never be used as having such a law would discourage anybody from trafficking the likes of Victoria to our shores and exploiting them in such a way.

However, I live in the real world and understand that human traffickers have no regard to national or international laws. Therefore, the onus is on us as a society to end what is the slavery of the 21st century. Considering the number of people being trafficked throughout the world, how many of them are being trafficked not only for prostitution but for benefit fraud and some other financial gain? The estimate is that between 700,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked world-wide. I do not know the estimate for this country, if there is one. It is probably difficult to quantify unless people come forward.

There is a considerable amount of trafficking into Europe. Ireland is a member of the European Union and we obviously have similar levels to other countries. We should try to ensure any legislation we enact covers all the angles and that is why I tabled this amendment.

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