Front-Line and Emerging Professionals including Social Workers, Educators, Medical Staff & Youth Workers are amongst those most likely to encounter a victim of trafficking during their day-to-day work. Whilst many professionals are well placed to identify child victims of trafficking, quite often they are unaware of what signs to look out for and how to report their suspicions. MECPATHS helps to equip individuals and organisations to “Know It, See It, Say It” so that they can respond confidently and efficiently.

Child trafficking is defined as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt” of a child for the purpose of some type of exploitation. Different types of Child Trafficking include Sexual Exploitation, Criminal Exploitation, Forced Begging, Organ Harvesting, Forced Marriage and Forced Labour. Anyone can become a victim of human trafficking, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, age, gender or socio-economic status, however, children are especially vulnerable to being targeted by traffickers and caught in exploitative situations.

Ireland has been identified as a source, destination, and transit country for the Trafficking of Human Beings. Children are at heightened risk of Trafficking in Ireland as their vulnerabilities are easily detected and exploited. From 2013-2024, the State formally identified 54 child victims of trafficking in Ireland the majority of whom were girls, representing 8% of all victims. This percentage is significantly lower than the EU average of 19% and the global average of 38%.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
•Understand and know the definition of Trafficking in Persons with a particular focus on Child Trafficking.
•Be familiar with Child Trafficking Statistics within the Global and Irish contexts including Official Statistics and International Agency Projections.
•Be cognisant of the importance of language when it comes to recognising the most prolific types of Child Trafficking in Ireland.
•Know the different forms which Child Trafficking takes and be familiar with associated Indicators to support victim identification.
•Understand the Intersections, parallels and differences between Human Trafficking and Human Smuggling.
•Have a knowledge of Ireland’s Legal, Statutory and Non-Profit Profit Responses.
•Receive an overview of Ireland’s National Referral Mechanism and how victims are identified, and the new legislative changes, enacted in July 2024, governing this.
•Know how to report any suspicions of Human Trafficking.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR
MECPATHS is a non-profit organisation which focuses specifically on the issue of Child Trafficking, in Ireland. Established in 2013, it advocates for child safeguarding from trafficking through collaborative action, awareness raising and education. It does so by facilitating workshops for frontline and emerging professionals across many disciplines including Social Work, Healthcare, Education and Hospitality.

JP O’ SULLIVAN
Networks and Communications Manager. JP is a professional social worker with almost 2 decades of experience working on the issue of Human Trafficking. A graduate of UCC, JP is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Anti Human Trafficking with The Royal College of Surgeons and has delivered Internationally on the topic.