New report from Ireland: 45 rescued from human trafficking ring
Forty-five victims of human trafficking were rescued in Northern Ireland, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
The new report, released on Monday, indicates that they were subjected to domestic servitude, labor or sexual exploitation.
The NCA confirms that one girl and three women said they had been sexually exploited.
Photo/Sawso.org
Twenty-two of those rescued were Romanian, 10 were from China and others were from Albania, Vietnam and Lithuania.
In all, 30 adults said they had been exploited for cheap or free labor – 23 of them were men and seven were women.
The figures, published in the National Referral Mechanism Statistics End of Year Summary 2014, are 10% higher than in 2013.
Staff at Belfast International Airport have been trained by human rights organisation, the International Justice Mission (IJM), to spot trafficking victims.
Its UK chief executive, Terry Tennens, said: “The vast majority of trafficking victims come from backgrounds of poverty, which makes women and girls especially susceptible to traffickers’ schemes of deception.
“They are more likely to accept a fraudulent job offer or an insincere marriage proposal that involves moving to another location or country.”
In 2014, IJM trained more than 18,900 police, prosecutors, government officials and community members worldwide to be able to recognise and combat all forms of violent crimes in their communities, including human trafficking.
