Irish airline crews, airport ground staff, port staff and other transport workers are to be offered training to spot victims of trafficking under a pilot project being developed by the Immigrant Council of Ireland.
The Stop Traffick project will see air crews being offered a half-day training course in an effort to identify women and girls being brought into the State to be sexually exploited.
The Immigrant Council, with the support of the European Commission, has developed this project as recent figures confirm that children now account for almost half of all trafficking victims in Ireland.
Nusha Yonkova, anti-trafficking co-ordinator of the Immigrant Council said: “The Immigrant Council has assisted 50 victims of sex-trafficking. All tell a similar story of being tricked into coming to Ireland with promises of a new life only for reality to dawn when they meet their pimp in the arrivals hall at our airports.
“Immediately passports, travel documents and money are taken and often within hours, victims are working in a brothel.”