The sex trafficking of women and children is the single biggest cause of concern for people countering illegal immigration, a senior immigration official said yesterday as a Garda immigration conference got under way in Dublin.
Phil Taylor, director for Scotland and Northern Ireland at the British immigration and nationality department, said the trafficking of girls and children "causes us all most sleepless nights and how we counter that is the one that I think is top of the agenda".
He said it was "very difficult" to get the evidence to prosecute the people trafficking women. "Often these women are extremely scared, not only for themselves but for their friends and their families so it's a really uphill struggle but we can't stop doing it just because it's difficult." He said there was some evidence of sex workers moving between Britain and Ireland.
Mr Taylor said it was very difficult to distinguish between women who were being forced into the sex industry and those who were doing it voluntarily.
The conference also heard that almost 1,100 illegal immigrants had been stopped trying to enter this State from Northern Ireland this year.
Some 1,035 people were stopped at Dundalk while a further 23 were stopped at different points along the Border, according to Garda National Immigration Bureau figures. Nigerians account for the highest number of people stopped.
In total, some 5,436 people have been refused at ports of entry so far this year, compared to 4,937 last year. The majority (3,122) have been stopped at Dublin airport but Dundalk accounts for the second-largest number of refusals.
The conference on immigration enforcement is being attended by 160 delegates from police forces, immigration services and policy divisions in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and this State.
The two-day conference is closed to the media for operational reasons.
It will look at issues such as counterterrorism, visa abuse, the return of illegal immigrants and human trafficking.
