Suspected child victim of trafficking from Ukraine taken into emergency care

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency (CFA), applied to the District Court for an emergency care order (ECO) for an unaccompanied girl who arrived in Ireland from Ukraine in the company of a man who was not related to her.

A social worker told the court the child presented at the Ukrainian centre at the airport with no identification and accompanied by a man. The child initially told the social worker the man was her uncle but then said he was her cousin. It later transpired he was not related to her.

When the judge asked if someone was trying to traffic someone from Ukraine whether they would bring her to the Ukraine centre, the social worker said they would not but there were people checking at the airport.

[ Children with complex needs are being kept in hotels and holiday homes due to lack of care placements - Child Law Project ]

The girl told the authorities she met the man in school, had known him for four years, he bought her nice things and her parents didn’t look after her.

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The CFA had unsuccessfully attempted to make telephone contact with the girl’s family using numbers in her phone. It was understood her mother and grandmother were in two different EU countries. One of the people who was contacted, the mother’s former partner, told the CFA the man who was with the girl was not a good man and she should be taken away from him.

The man was arrested and interviewed by gardaí before being released without charge. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

The court was informed the girl repeatedly asked if she could speak to the man and said she wanted to speak to him about a lady issue. The court was told she presented as a very vulnerable person.

The girl told the social worker she was 17 and provided a passport but the social worker told the court she presented as much younger.

The social worker said it might be that the girl had some intellectual difficulties. The girl had told social workers she attended a special school in Ukraine and that her stepfather drank vodka all of the time.

The judge, granting the emergency care order, said the girl was a vulnerable child who had come into the country with a man who was no relation to her, but who was not a stranger to her, and with no parent to care for her.