Child trafficking in Ireland is a “hidden dark reality” that the State apparatus is “actively ignoring,” the Seanad heard today after a report claimed trafficking among children is significantly under-identified.
The report from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, published last week, claimed that the number of children formally identified as victims remains extremely low despite growing evidence of exploitation.
The research found said that child trafficking is significantly under-identified, including among Irish children.
None of the children identified in 2024 or 2025 were Irish. The report has called for urgent action to roll out a referral mechanism to enable the identification of victims by state agencies and their partners.
Children experiencing exploitation can be overlooked or misidentified, and may be treated primarily through child protection or criminal justice systems rather than recognised as potential victims of trafficking, it said.
The report said that sexual exploitation is the most commonly identified form of child trafficking in Ireland.
It noted cases of children as young as six being exploited as “drug runners” by gangs. Another case saw a 14-year-old girl trafficked to Ireland for “domestic servitude” following the death of her parents.
“Our authorities are blind to the exploitation happening right in front of them, too often treating vulnerable child victims as simple child protection statistics rather than as victims,” said Senator Sharon Keogan today.
“The statistics are a mathematical indictment of this Government. In 2024, only ten child victims were identified in the entire State. In 2025, that number was just 18. Let us compare this with our nearest neighbour, the UK, where over 7,400 children were identified in a single year,” she said.
‘NOT A SINGLE ONE WAS AN IRISH NATIONAL’
“Here, however, is the most shocking revelation. Of all the child trafficking victims identified in Ireland in 2024 and 2025, not a single one was an Irish national. This completely contradicts European and UK data, where around 80% of identified child victims are citizens exploited within their own borders,” said the Senator. “Gangs and predatory networks are actively grooming, sexually exploiting and using Irish children in residential State care for criminal activities. Yet the State is failing to identify them.
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“Meanwhile, our online spaces have become an unpoliced playground for groomers. The response to the technology facilitating this trafficking has completely failed to keep pace with organised crime.
“We have billions of euros floating around the Exchequer, yet the specialised unit tasked with investigating these horrific networks, the Garda human trafficking investigation and co-ordination Unit, is systematically starved of resources. I think we have 16 gardaí in that unit. Let us just think about that number. Can we imagine what goes undetected?
“I call for an urgent debate on this report and I demand that the Minister immediately increase the number of gardaí assigned to this vital human trafficking unit before any more children are left to fall through the cracks.”
The IHREC said the figures could not be taken as an indication of the true scale of child trafficking in Ireland.
The research found a strong consensus among stakeholders that child trafficking is significantly under-identified, including among Irish children. Children experiencing exploitation can be overlooked or misidentified, and may be treated primarily through child protection or criminal justice systems rather than recognised as potential victims of trafficking.
The Commission said this is particularly concerning as the nature of child exploitation is changing rapidly, with social media, messaging platforms, online gaming and other digital technologies increasingly being used to groom, recruit and control children.
Chief Commissioner Liam Herrick said: “The figures tell us how few children have been identified in Ireland. They cannot tell us how many children we have failed to see.”
“Children who are trafficked are groomed, exploited or controlled, and their experience may never come to the attention of the services that could protect them. Our starting point must therefore be identification. If a child is not recognised as a potential victim of trafficking, they cannot access the protection, assistance and specialist support they need.”