In its Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, the US State Department has downgraded Ireland from a Tier One country to Tier Two, putting it on a par with states such as India and Indonesia. This represents the scale of the problem in the Irish fishing industry, according to ITF.
- Tier 1 countries are these whose governments fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s (TVPA) minimum standards.
- Tier 2 are the countries whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.
- Tier 2 Watch list Countries are these whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards AND:
a) The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing;
b) There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or
c) The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year - Tier 3 Countries whose governments do not fully meet the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.
The report criticises the Irish state’s failure to protect vulnerable people, including children, from sexual exploitation and forced labour in the fishing industry, ITF claimed.
As previously reported, from July 2017 to May 2018, 12 cases of human trafficking and abuse within the Irish fishing industry had been reported to the Irish police, international media report, which are being investigated. In response, the ITF sent an official letter to the Irish government in May 2018, giving it 21 days to respond positively, before taking the case to the high court.
Commenting on the report, Ken Fleming, ITF co-ordinator for Ireland and Britain, said:
The continuing failure of the Irish state to effectively enforce its own laws or heed warnings by organisations such as the ITF and the Joint Oireachtas Committee has left us with no option but to initiate proceedings against the government in the High Court, which are due to be heard in the near future.
