Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The criminal law Bill is proposed as a legal instrument to improve the national response to the identification of victims of human trafficking.

Ireland's response to human trafficking and the identification of victims has been subject to negative reporting in the US Department of State's annual trafficking in persons report and the Council of Europe expert group evaluation on compliance with the CoE convention on human trafficking.

In the US TIP report, three of the 18 priority recommendations relate to victim identification:

Increase efforts to proactively identify and protect all victims, especially Irish citizens, victims of labor trafficking and forced criminality, and vulnerable populations like children, sea fishers, and asylum-seekers.

Improve victim identification and referral by issuing a revised NRM in coordination with NGOs; providing victim identification training for all front-line officials, including for labor inspectors; and offering formal identification, a recovery and reflection period, and services to all victims.

Allow formal victim identification by entities other than the police, including civil society, labor inspectors, social workers, and health care professionals.

Ireland is a two-tier country on the human trafficking watch list and the Government of Ireland does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. This was also Ireland's ranking last year.

A new report by the US State Department claims that Ireland did not convict any human traffickers for at least seven years in a row despite identifying more than 500 trafficking victims during that time. According to the report, the State failed to convict any traffickers for the crime of trafficking last year. The Government did not convict any traffickers for trafficking and instead relied on non-trafficking statutes that may have at times resulted in inadequate penalties, and has very convicted a trafficker for labour trafficking under its anti-trafficking law, it reads.

Systemic deficiencies in victim identification, referral and assistance persist. The Government did not yet amend its national referral mechanism and consequently did not identify any Irish nationals as victims.

The Government did not overhaul its framework for providing accommodation to trafficking victims, which continues to leave victims with inadequate and unsafe accommodation. The Government did not report providing trafficking-specific training to any judges and has never award restitution or compensation to victims.

As a matter of priority, the report urges Ireland to improve victim identification and to specifically identify "Irish citizens, victims of labor trafficking and forced criminality, and vulnerable populations like children, sea fishers, and asylum-seekers."

However, despite these shortfalls, the report added that the Irish State is making significant efforts to rectify the situation. Specifically, it pointed out to a variety of measures that had been implemented such as the special accommodation for female trafficking victims which was introduced last year, general awareness raised about the victims' prevalence and increased funding to support victims of the practice.