Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)

I very much welcome this opportunity to speak in the House on the workings of the OSCE. I do not think the five minutes speaking time I have will do it justice so I will skip quite a bit of my speech, because other Deputies outlined the political and financial workings of the OSCE, and go to what I am interested in which is the human dimension. I hope to be able to demonstrate that although the OSCE is one of the largest organisations in the world it can be brought down to an individual level. A previous speaker on the other side the House mentioned how the OSCE can work on an individual basis.

In April we hosted the conference, Shared Future, at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham which was attended by countries from as far away as Japan and Korea. A large part of our OSCE work is about conflict resolution and this conference allowed us to showcase Northern Ireland as an example of how these seemingly intractable problems can be resolved, not by coercion but by co-operation. We must recognise the uniqueness of each and every conflict but we can take best practices and apply them to other conflicts.

I have long been interested in the issue of human trafficking and I met high-level people in Vienna in February, including the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings, Ms Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, to further my personal interest and Ireland's interest in the area of human trafficking and the reasons behind it. Traffickers prey on people who find themselves in very weak positions, often with promises of wealth and happiness elsewhere. However, the only thing they are guaranteed is a life of misery and hard labour. People who are trafficked cannot escape; they are forced into a type of bonded labour where they must work to pay off their debt through forced labour or the sex industry. As previous speakers stated, this is a real threat to young women. Human trafficking is second only to drug trafficking, generating millions of dollars a year. To quote the report, Breaking the Silence, which compiled information on trafficking in the Roma community, "The heightened awareness of trafficking as a global issue is welcome".

My colleagues will have heard me previously raise a particular case. It is the case of the horrific murder of the Roma child, Marioara Rostas. This case affected me very deeply because it encapsulated all of the work in which the OSCE is involved with regard to human rights. While trafficking was not an element in the case, the Roma population tends to suffer most from human trafficking. It involved low levels of education and skills which the OSCE has cited as one of the most important factors in people being trafficked. I am delighted the OSCE has prioritised human trafficking as something that must be focused on and resolved. It is leading the way on the issue.

In conclusion, I thank the members of the Irish delegation, Deputies Spring, Murphy, Humphreys and Donnelly for their interest in and engagement with the OSCE. I look forward to the conference in June and the gathering of the Foreign Ministers in Dublin in December.

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