35 per cent increase in women in sex trafficking victims, charity says

Ottoline Spearman

There was a 35 per cent increase in new victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation last year.

Charity Ruhama, which supports victims of prostitution, sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, engaged with 216 new victims in 2024.

There was also a 75 per cent rise in the demand for support services from women impacted by prostitution and trafficking.

Ruhama is holding an international conference in Dublin on Thursday, to discuss the role technology plays in sexual violence and exploitation - including the use of artificial intelligence and deep fakes.

Speaking on Newstalk, Barbara Condon, CEO of Ruhama, said that there is a direct link between trafficking and exploitation and the online world: "For some women, pornography is the gateway into prostitution. People think it's fantasy, but it's real life.

"It's women who are engaged who are getting paid to suffer real pain while they're being filmed. There's websites you can go into and there's drop down menus of all the sexual favors that you can order online.

In addition, almost 28,000 reports of child sexual abuse material were logged in Ireland by tech companies with a US-based watchdog last year, as reported by the Irish Examiner.

The figure was revealed in a report by the Scottish institute Childlight - Global Child Safety Institute this week.

The Childlight study revealed that reports relating to Ireland regarding the hosting of child sexual abuse material online, combined with the 27,946 reports of such material logged by tech companies to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, increased ninefold last year.

The report outlined that the rate for Ireland increased from six per 100,000 people in 2023 to 53.5 per 100,000 people last year.

It noted that Ireland’s rate is below the Western European average of 72.2 and said that “the rise may reflect improved detection”.

Spokesman for Childlight, Jason Allardyce, told the Irish Examiner that Ireland’s moves in tackling child sexual abuse material are strong, including “the fact that Ireland is one of the first countries to have a regulator, with Coimisúin na Meán”.

He said that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is answerable to US Congress, “requires tech companies like Meta to share with it details of any child abuse material they discover on their platforms like Facebook”.

He added that the same applies to other social media platforms.

Meanwhile, Ms Condon told the Irish Examiner that the conference comes amid huge challenges posed by technology.

Ms Condon said: “AI is opening up a kind of nightmare world of deep fake porn and online grooming.

"It is an area that is so new to the vast majority of us, but it is really important to explore it and counteract it.”