John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and commend Deputy Naughten for putting it before the House. It is easy for us to forget and ignore the rights of the most vulnerable in our society, those who never get a chance to live a normal existence, either in their country of origin or their country of destination. They have been exploited, deceived and taken advantage of by criminals from start to finish. They find themselves in many cases treated as criminals when in fact they are victims who need protection rather than conviction.

Anyone who watched "The Clinic" on Sunday night saw a good example in dramatic and graphic terms of how sex trafficking is a criminal business run by those with little regard for human life, never mind human dignity. The passing of the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 and the Government's anti-human trafficking tracking plan have been acknowledged as steps in the right direction. The key to their success will be how they are enforced and the support services that must be put in place for the victims of sexual exploitation. That is what the motion is about.

A major obstacle to the implementation of the legislation is identifying the victims of trafficking. That issue has been dealt with by Deputy Naughten and others. I want to talk about those who are being accommodated once they have been identified as victims. At present they are placed in asylum centres during the recovery and reflection period. There is one such centre in my constituency in Mayo and although I have no evidence there are any such victims placed there are the moment, the reality is that this is how victims are being accommodated under the legislation. It is imperative that accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees must be separated from the victims of sex trafficking. There is an asylum issue but the primary issue is the exploitation that takes place.

I have seen figures from the Galway Rape Crisis Centre, where 20% of the reported rape and abuse cases are made by asylum seekers. This confirms the need to protect these people and keep them away from asylum centres once they are identified. This is the only way further exploitation will not take place because these women are vulnerable and in poor financial circumstances.

I was reading a British report on this problem and it gave an idea of how this happens. A young woman was trafficked to Britain at age 15, placed in hostel accommodation and then in shared housing with other young women, none of whom spoke the same language. She was swiftly traced by her trafficker, who forced her back into prostitution and prevented her from attending college or finding a normal job.

The trafficking victims should be housed by groups with the necessary training, skills and support services, such as the Sonas housing initiative, which currently offers support to victims of domestic violence. Sonas has cared for two victims of trafficking in recent times but they were directed to Sonas by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, not by the State. If the victims feel safe and secure, they are more likely to cooperate with the gardaí, which will help to solve the problem and hopefully lead to the conviction and imprisonment of the traffickers.

The Minister outlined last night the support services available to victims. The difficulty is that Deputy Naughten's motion outlines the major difficulty with the use of the asylum centres as the setting for these services. These victims must get away from the places where many of them got involved in prostitution in the first place. Many European countries, including Britain, have passed legislation clamping down on prostitution. If we do not act now, the problem will increase in our country instead of being brought under control. I strongly support the motion.

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