The staff strives to protect children in state care from sexual exploitation

These included:

• An unaccompanied minor who told her guardian ad litem (a court-appointed person to represent a child’s interests in legal proceedings) that she had been exploited by a man who had brought her to Ireland and that she had ‘engaged in sexual acts with him and other men’ in her home country. During a court hearing concerning an application for the youth to briefly return to her home country to visit her terminally ill mother, her guardian ad litem said that the man who had brought her to Ireland was in custody in connection with an attack on her foster parent and was being investigated on allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation;
• A 17-year-old girl who was the subject of an application to extend a restraining order was accused of providing sexual images of herself in exchange for “money from various men who were not her friends”. The girl’s guardian ad litem’s lawyer told a court hearing that the girl believes she was to blame. The court heard that between 20 and 30 men were believed to have been involved in the incident, but the Garda on the case said “there could be more as she used Snapchat and Instagram”.
• A teenager who had the cognitive abilities of a 10-year-old was raped while in Tusla’s care. The teenager was believed to have been sexually trafficked across the country. On one occasion, she called her guardian ad litem at 11 p.m. to say she did not know where she was and that she was cold and hungry. She was in a city two hours away from her placement. Her guardian ad litem said there had been two or three incidents where she had been picked up by men. There had been reports of abuse in her previous foster home. Tusla’s social worker also admitted that the girl had received death threats.

Child Law Project Executive Director Dr Maria Corbett said the issue of exploitation of children in state care was of particular concern, noting that there were a number of such cases “and the level of support in their current care is insufficient to stabilise them and address these risks”.

She added: “For some, the situation deteriorated when their cases came to court for reconsideration and became very grim as staff struggled to keep children safe.”

She said children in the “care population” were particularly at risk, adding: “We really question whether we are adequately responding to the concerns about sexual exploitation.”

“We currently need to take another look at this in our nursing homes.”

Last year, a report by the Sexual Exploitation Research Programme at University College Dublin highlighted that children and young people, particularly girls, who are placed in institutions or disappear while in state care are victims of organised sexual exploitation by coordinated networks or gangs of sexually abusive men.

Tusla is currently conducting an investigation into current concerns about the sexual exploitation of children in residential care.