Anti-trafficking work demands ‘ethical leadership’, say campaigners

“I think we need more male champions – we really have to reach out, we can’t be talking to ourselves,” said Frances Fitzgerald, the former Tánaiste and MEP.

A senior anti-trafficking official emphasised the importance of “ethical leadership” in campaigning against traffickers at a major conference in Ireland.

“Without ethical leadership we will get nowhere,” said Kevin Hyland OBE, who is chief advisor to the Santa Marta Group, at the event in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth on Thursday, titled “Human Trafficking – Justice and Faith Perspective”.

The former detective inspector, who led the Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Unit, told the conference that ethical leadership was a theme both Pope Francis and Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who leads the Santa Marta group, “talk about a lot”.

Referring to the perseverance of William Wilberforce in his battle to make slavery illegal in the early nineteenth century, he said the MP’s “leadership was that he wasn’t going to give up even though it was detrimental to him”.

Mr Hyland, who was appointed the UK’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and authored Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 to eradicate human trafficking within the UN’s strategic priorities, regretted the absence of any Irish bishop at the conference.

Jointly hosted by St Patrick’s College and the Santa Marta Group, the conference heard presentations from former Tánaiste and MEP Frances Fitzgerald, Sr Abby Avelino of Talitha Kum, Detective Chief Superintendent Colm Noonan, who heads the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, and Dr Ethna Regan of Dublin City University.

Acknowledging the presence of the apostolic nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor, Hyland commented, “but we didn’t have representation from the bishops’ conference”.

“The fact that they weren’t here isn’t the end of it but we need to bring them back into this. They are the leaders of the Church – they are absent from this room. The Gardaí managed to send a very senior [representative], we didn’t get that from the Church.”

Mrs Fitzgerald paid tribute to the Irish police, who she said “are doing exceptional work in this area”, and noted that they had made it a priority. She also paid tribute to Hyland’s work, leadership and his role advising the G20 on human trafficking.

Opening her address, the former Irish Minister for Justice welcomed “the work of the Pope and the Church” in this area and described herself as “the product of two different orders of Sisters – the Dominicans and Holy Family. I try to be a credit to them!”

Now a patron of Ruhama, the Irish charity that supports women who are exploited in prostitution and human trafficking, Fitzgerald paid tribute to Sr Abby Avelino of Talitha Kum, who addressed the conference on Religious Sisters’ efforts on the frontline against human trafficking.

“It is to her credit and the organisation that they are working with so many thousands of women on the frontline and showing them exit routes out of prostitution and out of trafficking.”

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Fitzgerald, 72, is the mother of three adult sons. “We have to make sure that more and more men are involved in our conversations,” she said. “I think we need more male champions – we really have to reach out, we can’t be talking to ourselves.”

“I think male champions are really important,” she said, because of the “new generation of very disillusioned young men” and the influence of people like Andrew Tate.

“We really have to work with these young men who are getting a very perverse sense of the world of equality and have big chips on their shoulders, we have to understand what that is about and do work with them to help them transition away from some of their thinking that is very dangerous.”

Dismissing arguments for the legalisation of prostitution, she challenged: “Why is it acceptable to buy women’s bodies in this day and age?”

“I think men that are older have a really important role to play. I would like to see more male leadership, prominent men and male leaders in politics, speaking out on this more.”

Elsewhere in her address, Fitzgerald said poverty was key driver of trafficking. At the same time, the organised criminal gangs “have only one thing on their minds – to exploit and to make more money. It is difficult to estimate the scale of it. It is characterised by very high rewards and low risks for the perpetrators. I think prime ministers and government leaders have to have it higher up their agendas.”

She said she would like to see more countries adopt the Nordic model which shifts the focus from criminalising those involved in prostitution on to pimps and those buying sex. “If there wasn’t the demand, there wouldn’t be the supply,” she said.   

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