She made the plea following the publication of a Garda Inspectorate report which revealed that children as young as eight are being exploited by criminal networks. The report says such exploitation “usually follows a grooming process where they are gradually coerced into criminal exploitation”.

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

Mecpaths network and communications manager JP O’Sullivan said the report highlighted what the organization was hearing in communities.

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

He said that in the past eight years, the area of ​​criminal exploitation of children has expanded its reach beyond urban environments to communities, villages and towns across the country.

“Many community actors are calling for a change in Garda training to recognize the signs of child exploitation within criminal networks. Mecpaths calls for this lens shift in all organizations working directly with young people – to recognize victimhood, see exploitation, change the language of ‘criminality’ and ‘offending’ and see the child behind the current behaviour.”

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

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

Mr O’Sullivan said: “Membership stretches from north Dublin to the rural pockets and communities of 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.”

“The reality would show that not only do few adults self-identify as victims of criminal exploitation at the hands of these groups, but children as victims rarely self-identify – lured into crime by the promise of tracksuits, money, status, connection and visibility that many none of them get it from anywhere else.”