Appointment of Executive Director of new Anti Human Trafficking Unit
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Brian Lenihan, T.D., announced today that, following a recent civil service competition, Ms. Marion Walsh, Principal Officer in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, has been appointed as the first head of the Anti Human Trafficking Unit. The new Office will be exclusively dedicated to co-ordinating and facilitating the implementation of a new national strategy to address human trafficking.
The new Unit will act as a pivot at national level, facilitating a well-focused, coordinated approach to tackling the sordid and heinous crime of human trafficking. It will also engage constructively with the NGO community, who will have an important part to play, particularly in relation to follow-up service provision to victims of human trafficking.
A career civil servant, Marion has worked in a wide range of posts in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. She has been Private Secretary to a number of Ministers for Justice. She has also worked in the Human Resources and Garda areas of the Department. In more recent years she was involved in the setting up of the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and immediately prior to her current appointment she served in the Criminal Law Reform area of the Department for a number of years.
Speaking following the announcement of her appointment, Marion said: "I look forward to working with governmental and non-governmental agencies in developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy which will prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers and protect victims. I am very much in listening mode and I am confident that we can work together to make a positive difference in tackling this crime, which has no place in a modern day Ireland."
The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill 2007 is scheduled for Report and Final stages of debate in the Dáil this afternoon. Following its passage through the Dáil it will be debated in the Seanad.
7 February 2008
NOTE TO EDITORS
Key measures being taken by the Government to tackle the sordid crime of human trafficking:
· A new High Level Group on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings is being established. This Group is tasked with presenting to the Minister the most appropriate and effective response to dealing with trafficking in human beings. The Group, co-chaired by the Director General of the Irish National Immigration Service and the Assistant Secretary in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform dealing with crime, will include representatives of An Garda Síochána and other Departments and Offices who have a contribution to make to the national response. The new Executive Director will be a key member of this High Level Group.
The Committee will decide the most appropriate way to engage constructively with NGOs and other interested parties to ensure the most effective response to this crime. The NGO community will have an important role to play, particularly in relation to service provision for victims.
· A National Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings will be drafted by the High Level Group.
It is envisaged that the National Action Plan will be drafted under four main headings:
- Prevention of Trafficking and Awareness Raising;
- Prosecution of the Trafficker;
- Protection of the Victim;
- Response to Child Trafficking
A key goal of the National Action Plan will be that Ireland has the appropriate legislative and administrative structures in place to allow for ratification of all relevant international instruments.
Coinciding with the International Anti-Trafficking Day on 18 October 2007, advertisements were placed in the national media seeking the views of the public and concerned organisations on what should be included in the Action Plan. At the end of January 2008 the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform had received over twenty submissions from interested parties.
Additional resources have been assigned to the Anti-Trafficking Unit in the Department to coordinate this work.
· The necessary framework to deal with the immigration related assistance to be afforded a victim of trafficking is being addressed by the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill which was published recently.
The Bill provides for a period of recovery and reflection of 45 days and also, in circumstances where the person trafficked wishes to assist the Gardaí in any investigation or prosecution in relation to the alleged trafficking of a further six months period of residence to allow him or her to do so.
This Bill will enable the State to comply with a number of the relevant provisions on assistance to victims of human trafficking in the Council of Europe Convention.
Addressing other victim protection issues will be an important part of the National Action Plan to combat trafficking in human beings.
· The Garda National Immigration Bureau will continue to deploy whatever resources are necessary to counteract the problem of human trafficking. The Garda National Immigration Bureau and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform are actively cooperating with the UK’s Operation Pentameter II which was launched in London in October 2007. This is a coordinated campaign of law enforcement activity to tackle the trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation into the UK. Due to the land border and the common travel area, cooperating with and contributing to such operations makes practical sense. Officers from An Garda Síochána and officials from the Department sit on the Operation’s Gold Command Team as observers and have developed new contacts throughout the policing and NGO community in the UK. This operation will run is scheduled to run until October 2008.
· Ireland is part of a European G6 Initiative against human trafficking. This initiative involving six European countries (UK, Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Ireland) runs for one year. It has four strands of activity. Ireland hosted an international meeting on awareness raising campaigns in Dublin on 15th January 2008. The meeting documented and discussed the effectiveness of awareness raising campaigns carried out in participating countries in the last three years. As an outcome of the meeting, detailed proposals for a shared campaign in 2008 to raise awareness and discourage demand for the services of victims of sexual and labour exploitation in participating States are being prepared.
· An Garda Síochána continues to fully cooperate with the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) in Sheffield. The Centre, which provides the UK Law Enforcement response, is quickly becoming a centre of excellence. To date, officers from the UKHTC have participated in the training of more than 150 Gardaí in issues relating to human trafficking and victim identification and care.
· Ireland will continue to fulfil its obligations to participate in the activities of many international organisations against human trafficking. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and An Garda Síochána are currently participating in meetings of the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations, the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe Alliance against trafficking, and the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre. This is resulting in new networks being created and assistance being provided by our international partners in policy development and operational enforcement expertise.
· Ireland will actively support the UN Global Initiative to fight trafficking and will be represented at the Global Forum in Vienna next week.
While Ireland signed the Council of Europe Convention on Human Trafficking in April 2007, ratification cannot take place until the necessary changes have been made to the legislative base, and the required administrative processes and structures have been introduced.
It is important to note that a distinction exists between human trafficking and facilitated illegal immigration. For an offence to amount to human trafficking, there must be an element of recruitment, harbouring or transportation using threats, coercion, abduction, fraud or deception for the ultimate purpose of exploitation.
Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill 2007
Three sections of the Bill, 3, 4 and 5, create trafficking offences.
Section 3 of the Bill creates offences of trafficking in children for the purposes of labour exploitation and removal of organs for exploitative purposes.
The Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 already provides an offence of trafficking in children for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Section 4 amends that provision by inserting into that Act, in place of the existing offences, greatly strengthened offences of trafficking in children for the purpose of sexual exploitation which will fully comply with the international instruments.
Section 5 parallels sections 3 and 4 by creating specific offences of trafficking in adults for the purposes of labour or sexual exploitation or the removal of organs.
Sections 3 and 5 also provide offences of selling or purchasing persons, whether adults or children, for any purpose.
All the offences in sections 3, 4 and 5 will be punishable by a maximum prison sentence of life.
Sections 10 and 11 provide a power exists to exclude persons from the court during proceedings and to guarantee anonymity.
An amendment in section 12 to the Criminal Evidence Act 1992 means that an alleged trafficking victim will be able to give evidence through a live television link, either here or abroad.
Section 13 makes amendments to the Sex Offender Act 2001. Failure to comply with the obligation to notify the Gardaí of one's name and address, or changes to one's name or address, what is commonly known as the sex offenders register, will be an arrestable offence and Probation Service Officers are being given power to prosecute persons who do not comply with any condition attaching to a post-release supervision order.