Garda: ‘Trafficked women on pimping websites within 24 hours of arrival’

The ‘online retail’ of prostitutes in Ireland is being fuelled by sex trafficking, the Garda has warned.

Detective Superintendent Derek Maguire of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau (NPSB) reported that 114 human trafficking victims had been identified in 2025. But he said: “We know there’s multiples more than that out there.”

According to the NPSB, people are being trafficked into the country for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation and forced criminality, and most sexual exploitation victims come from Brazil.

‘Horrendous cases’

Det Supt Maguire said: “We’ve seen horrendous cases where people are brought here to Ireland with no English whatsoever, thinking they’re coming for a better life, and they are put straight onto sexual websites for sexual services.

“A photograph is taken, it’s put up on a website, and they’re providing sexual services within 24 hours of arriving here.”

“And it’s not just Ireland that is seeing the huge uptick in the amount of Brazilian people that are being trafficked here for sexual exploitation. That’s across Europe.”

On a recent typical day, he explained, there were 1,159 individuals advertised for prostitution in Ireland, including 468 in Dublin, 99 in Cork and 37 in Limerick.

Illegal

The Christian Institute’s Policy Researcher Jenny Olson commented: “This news drives home the awful reality of prostitution: vulnerable women tricked and deceived into a world of misery, sold online through websites in the Republic of Ireland.”

She pointed out that though pimping websites are technically illegal in Ireland, pimps evade the ban by registering their businesses in European nations with weaker anti-trafficking laws.

Olson continued: “Clearly, more needs to be done by the Gardai and lawmakers to bring facilitators of sex trafficking to justice. Online pimping websites are not just complicit in exploitation – many routinely offer traffickers incentives to increase the number of women advertised for exploitation.”

She added: “We must pray for the many victims of trafficking who need support to rebuild their lives.”