Human Trafficking & Slavery in Galway and Ireland

courtesy of www.ruhama.ie

The news tonight about three women being held in London as slaves for 30 years provides ample evidence that slavery is a fact of modern life.
As part of my Internet Safety talks to parents and second level senior students, I discuss the fact that the huge Internet porn industry is based on actors who are slaves, mainly teenage girls. 

In Ireland today, there are trafficked girls and young women being brought into this country from Asia, Africa  and Eastern Europe to satisfy the sexual demands of men both Irish and non-Irish. 
Ireland also has an international reputation as a handy location for facilitating marriages of convenience to secure EU citizenship. The gangs & pimps are mainly from the same countries as the victims. A Romanian man Ilie Ionut who operated his brother empire from  Galway and later Belfast is on trial in Sweden for trafficking women into Ireland and Sweden for enforced prostitution. 
But the Irish government has done little to halt the flow of human slavery. Few if any prosecutions.
Time for Irish politicians to protect the victims and jail the pimps, thugs and gangsters as well as criminalise the purchase of sex. 

The Web: New Front Line in War against Teens

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Internet Safety has taken over much of my working life over the last year. Ever since the tragic deaths last year of Erin Gallagher and Ciara Pugsley, I have been increasingly providing talks and workshops in schools and with youth support groups on Cyberbullying and related issues throughout the West of Ireland from northern Sligo to southern Clare- daytime with students/teachers and evenings with parents. I love the Internet and firmly believe that it is the greatest man-made benefit to human society and to the planet for millennia.

But there is a dark side to the Web facilitated by light touch regulation, government inaction and adult ignorance that is placing our young people at increased risk not only as a result of cyberbullying and public humiliation on popular social media sites but also with areas such as online stalking, grooming by predators and an upsurge in online child pornography.

One of the most worrying trends is the increasing sexual objectivity of teenage females who are the prime victims of online porn.

I will publish a full media article on this subject next month.