Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2025, published 114th ILC session (2026)

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) - Ireland (Ratification: 1999)

The Committee notes the observations of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) received on 29 August 2025. It requests the Government to provide its comments in this respect.

Article 7(2)(a) and (b) of the Convention. Effective and time-bound measures. Preventing the engagement of children in the worst forms of child labour and providing direct assistance for their removal and their rehabilitation and social integration. Sale and trafficking of children. The Committee notes the Government’s indication, in its report, that a new Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Act was adopted in 2024, which gives statutory effect to a revised National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for the identification of victims of trafficking. The Government also provides the following data on the number of child victims of trafficking identified: five child victims of trafficking identified in 2022, five child victims in 2023 and ten child victims in 2024.

The Committee further notes that the ICTU, in its observations, while welcoming the adoption of the new law and the revised NRM, highlights that: (1) there is a need for a specialized process for the identification of child victims of trafficking; (2) the Operational Guidelines of the NRM have not yet been published; and (3) over the last two years, there has been an increase in the number of identified child victims of trafficking. The Committee requests the Government to provide: (i) information on the measures taken to prevent and combat child trafficking; (ii) information on the types of direct assistance provided to child victims of trafficking identified to ensure their rehabilitation and social integration; and (iii) a copy of the Operational Guidelines of the National Referral Mechanism, once published.

Commercial sexual exploitation of children. The Committee notes that the ICTU indicates that there is credible evidence that children are recruited for sexual exploitation. Referring to a publication from the Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy Institute, the Community Foundation Ireland and the University College Dublin, the ICTU states that children, particularly girls, in residential care or who go missing while in State care, are being targeted for sexual exploitation in an organized manner by coordinated networks or gangs. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the measures taken to: (i) prevent and combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children; (ii) identify child victims of sexual exploitation and provide them with the direct necessary and appropriate direct assistance to remove them from this worst form of child labour and ensure their rehabilitation and social integration; and (iii) ensure that child victims taken into State care are protected and not revictimized. The Committee also requests the Government to provide information on the number of child victims of commercial sexual exploitation who have been identified and removed from this worst form of child labour, and on the types of direct assistance from which they have benefited in the context of their rehabilitation and social reintegration.