merrion street

The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) (Amendment) Bill 2013 completed its passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas this week. Commenting on its passage, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter TD, said

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This legislation will facilitate full compliance with the criminal law measures in Directive 2011/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA.

To fully comply with the directive’s minimum definition of exploitation, the legislation criminalises trafficking for the purposes of forced begging and trafficking for criminal activities. The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 already criminalises human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, labour exploitation (including subjecting a person to forced labour) and exploitation for the removal of human organs.

This new legislation also defines the term "forced labour", as used in the 2008 Act. The definition is based on the definition in International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention No. 29 of 1930 on Forced or Compulsory Labour. Subject to certain specific exceptions, the ILO definition is "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the person has not offered himself voluntarily". Referring to this important reform, Minister Shatter remarked "The ILO definition is the international standard, and the new legislation now enacted ensures that there can be no doubt as to our fully complying with that standard and our having in place rigorous criminal law sanctions applicable to all of those who engage in human trafficking".

In addition, for human trafficking offences, the 2013 Bill contains provision to better facilitate children giving evidence in criminal prosecutions. It increases from 14 to 18 years the upper age threshold for out-of-court video recording of a complainant’s evidence and makes provision for video recording the evidence of a child witness (other than an accused) who is under the age of 18 years.

Commenting on these provisions, Minister Shatter said "This is a significant development in the rules applicable to children giving evidence. While the scope of these particular measures is limited to human trafficking offences, this represents the initial phase of a wider extension of these rules. Further rollout for other offences will be progressed as soon as possible.".

5 July 2013

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

Directive 2011/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA