Children as young as eight are recruited by criminal gangs to deliver drugs and collect debts

The plea was made following the publication of a Garda Inspectorate report which highlighted that children as young as eight are being exploited by criminal networks. According to the report, such exploitation “typically follows a ‘grooming process’ in which they are gradually forced into criminal exploitation.”

This usually involves manipulation, coercion, trafficking and exploitation of children and young people for all kinds of purposes, such as drug trafficking, child trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Mecpath’s network and communications manager JP O’Sullivan said the report highlighted what the organization has been hearing in communities.

“The recognition that children as young as eight are criminally exploited and intimidated to supply drugs and collect debts may seem remote or far-fetched to anyone unfamiliar with child trafficking in Ireland, but it is a lived reality for many children and many families across Ireland,” he said.

He said that over the past eight years, the field of child criminal exploitation has expanded its reach beyond the urban environment into communities, towns and cities across the country.

“Many community stakeholders are calling for a change in Garda training to recognize signs of child exploitation within criminal networks. Mecpaths calls for this lens shift within all organizations that work directly with young people – to acknowledge victimhood, to see the exploitation, to change the language of ‘crime’ and ‘offensive behaviour’ and to see the child behind the presented behavior stands.”

The Garda Inspectorate report found that a survey of Garda youth liaison officers found that approximately 1,000 young people under the age of 17 are at risk of being recruited and used by criminal networks for organized crime purposes.

On Monday, Mecpaths launched a network of concerned professionals across the country to respond to child trafficking.

Mr O’Sullivan said: “Membership extends from Dublin’s north inner city to rural areas and communities in Kerry. North, South, East and West. The experiences of social workers, youth workers and community workers reflect the disturbing reality of this growing pandemic of child exploitation.”

“Reality would show that not only do few adults identify themselves as victims of criminal exploitation by these groups, but children, as victims, rarely identify themselves – lured into crime with the promise of the tracksuit, the money, the status, the connection and the visibility that many of them don’t get from elsewhere.”