Demand for services by human trafficking victims up 35% – report

Demand for services by human trafficking victims up 35% – report

There has been a 35% increase in demand for services by victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, according to Ruhama.

Last year, 497 individuals were supported by the charity, according to its latest annual report.

Some 147 were victims of human trafficking, which represents a 68% increase in new referrals of victims from 2021.

Among the clients that have worked with Ruhama is Erica, whose story is one of poverty, trafficking, imprisonment, despair and escape.

It begins in Ghana, when Erica, decided to travel to the UK for work in her twenties.

The motivation for her decision was her three daughters, who were living in hiding with their grand-aunt because her ex-husband wanted them to undergo female genital mutilation.

Erica’s mother heard through the local market that a man was seeking young people to work at his store in the UK.

She jumped at the chance when she was told she could also bring her children in one year. It was a perfect opportunity for a new life.

Erica travelled from Ghana to Heathrow and was told by the trip organisers to inform UK emigration that she was in London to visit people.

She did this because her new employer said he had to sort out her work permit and this would happen once she got into the UK.

She said: “We took a car. We went to Croydon, then stayed there for two days and he said the work was in Belfast”.

Erica had never heard of Belfast, but he explained that it was in the UK. They took another plane.

“Then in Belfast, things started getting ugly”, she said.

Five-year ordeal

She felt confused when she was handed work clothes which were “very short”. She questioned how she would be able to do her job in the store.

Erica said: “I did tell him that I cannot work in this outfit even if I’m trying to lift something or put something on the floor, everything will show, and he said you put on what I ask you to put on”.

At that moment, Erica started to question what she had got herself into.

She said: “I was in a room, with a bed. They said you stay here, and we will bring you someone. That’s when it clicked. Oh my God. Someone for what?”

That was the beginning of an ordeal that lasted five years.

“When they brought in someone, I was screaming from the top of my head and shouting for everybody to hear me that this was happening to me and they told me you can shout as much as you like cry, do anything. Nobody’s going to hear you,” she said.

The property where she was imprisoned was an isolated farmhouse with a lot of land around it. She was warned if she escaped and went to the police, she would be returned because the police and the Traffickers knew each other. She was terrified.

Erica even sought help from the men who visited as clients.

She said: “Some of them tell you, I did not pay money to listen to your nonsense or they will call the people outside and say she’s not letting me do what I want to do. So sometimes they will come in, tie you up and let him do what he needs to do.

“So, in a way, it’s almost better for you to let the person do what he wants with you. So, you get food and then you don’t get punishment.”

After two years, Erica was moved from Belfast to Newry for a year and then on to Derry for another two years.

Escape from trafficking

It was in Derry that she attempted her escape.

She was brought with a number of other women to a nightclub in the city and was approached by a man who was Ghani – they switched to their own dialect.

Erica asked him to help her, and they made a plan. He would go outside to his car.

She had 20 minutes to try and escape the club, so she asked for permission to go to the bathroom.

There was a lot of drink being consumed by the men who brought her there and this appeared to have worked in her favour.

They initially watched her leave in the direction of the bathroom.

“I kept looking back and saw that they were not looking. So, I dashed out to the other side and then all of a sudden, I saw so many cars,” she said.

The man was waving at her from his car, and she ran towards him.

“I said go; they are coming. I told him just step on it, just step. They will catch us and kill the both of us and he could see how I was shaking then, and he said you will be OK,” she added.

For a number of weeks, she stayed with the man who helped her to escape, and he eventually brought her to Dublin.

Erica was terrified of gardaí due to the traffickers insisting that they knew the police personally, so she went to the International Protection Agency for help.

She was then referred to Ruhama.

The organisation’s CEO Barbara Condon said Erica’s situation is happening to women and young girls across the country.

“This is why, it’s really important that we raise awareness about this, and that people look out for suspicious activity and report it to the guards so that no other women are subjected to this level of pain and lifelong trauma,” Ms Condon said.

Domestic sexual and gender-based violence services, including Ruhama, have noted that the level of violence against women has increased.

Ms Condon said: “One of the cases we were we’re dealing with currently, the guards have said it’s the worst case of human trafficking that they’ve encountered in their careers, so that would just kind of give you some indication of how bad the violence is.”

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, who will launch the report today, recently received €12 million for Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence Services.

The Minister plans to publish a new National Action Plan on Human Trafficking shortly, setting out how the multi-agency work to combat human trafficking and support victims will be taken forward over the next four years.

Legislation is currently in the Oireachtas to develop a new National Referral Mechanism (NRM) to enable victims to go to other organisations and not solely the gardaí.

This, according to Minister McEntee, will “make it easier for victims of human trafficking to come forward and access supports”.

Indeed, such a facility would have helped Erica when she was brainwashed into thinking that she would be returned to the traffickers if she went to the authorities.

Gardaí ‘ever ready to help’

Now, Erica advises anyone who is in the situation she was in to go to the gardaí.

She said: “I’d tell anyone in my situation to try go to the guards, they are there to help, don’t go to someone like your neighbour because you put that neighbour and yourself in trouble, so it’s better to go to the guards, they know what they are doing and they will be ever ready to help you.”

Erica also has advice for the public, particularly households.

She said: “Be on the lookout. If your instinct is telling you there’s something not right, it’s probably not. If you see a house where there are too many people coming in and out and you think it’s unusual, just maybe, just maybe, you might be right.

“They (the traffickers) got me lots of takeaways and that’s what I was eating. So, if you’re living by someone and they are getting too many takeaways and there are people you know that live in that house, just maybe there’s something going on.

“If you report and they see there’s nothing wrong, you know you have done your best, but you could be saving someone’s life there.”

Erica is now a mother of four. She has a young boy and her three girls have joined her in Ghana from Ireland.

She said: “I sometimes say I still can’t believe I’m here, I still can’t believe I’m alive, because at one point I thought, there’s no way I will leave here like this. I’ll be dead next year.

“Now looking and seeing my kids and us being happy and I’m thinking is this really real, am I actually here? My kids are here?”

And it is Ruhama that reminds her that yes, it is real.