Our Work
Front-Line Professionals including Social Workers, Educators, Medical Staff & Youth Workers are amongst those most likely to encounter a victim of trafficking during the course of their day-to-day work. Whilst many of the Professionals with whom MECPATHS works are well placed to identify victims, quite often they are unaware of how to respond effectively to what they are seeing.
MECPATHS supports a wide-range of Front-Line Professionals to be equipped to “Know It, See It, Say It”, so that they are able to respond confidently and efficiently.
Hospitality
Whilst we recognise that the hospitality and services sectors are in no way responsible for Child Trafficking, we believe they can have a key role to play in helping protect children. Hospitality staff are amongst those professionals most likely to encounter a victim of child trafficking and Traffickers can take advantage of the privacy and anonymity that hotels and accommodation providers offer, using these unwitting venues to sexually exploit children.
Many hotels have taken a proactive approach to counter Child Trafficking by prioritising training for their staff so they can be equipped with the tools to recognise and safely report suspicions of Child Trafficking.When hotel staff and management are trained to be able to identify indicators of child trafficking, they have the ability to save a child from exploitation and slavery.
Hotel groups who have welcomed MECPATHS training include: PREM Group, Dalata, Trigon Hotels, and The Gleneagle Group. In 2017, PREM became the first hotel group in Ireland to include MECPATHS anti-child trafficking materials in an online module on its LMS, which forms part of its staff induction training curriculum. In recognition of this pioneering initiative at The HR Champion Awards in 2018 (hosted a The Guinness Storehouse, in partnership with William Fry), PREM Group received a standing ovation and were awarded the 'Champion Corporate Social Responsibility Award.' In 2022, with the help of educational materials from MECPATHS, Dalata also designed an anti-human trafficking module which forms part of their statutory training. All team members and managers are required to complete the module within their first 8 weeks of induction and must complete the module each year as a refresher.Social Work & Care Work
Social Work and Social Care Workers have a fundamental role to play in the identification of child victims of trafficking.
Children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and account for 33% of all victims of identified Human Trafficking globally. The Department of Justice details the challenge of Human Trafficking each year in its Annual Report. Since comprehensive record keeping began in 2013, each year the number of children competently identified as victims of trafficking has fluctuated between 25% of all victims to as low as 0%.
MECPATHS has been working with Tusla since 2022 to help raise awareness around Child Trafficking amongst their staff. In 2023, over 800 Tusla staff, including those working in Residential Care, Fostering and Adoption, Intake and Duty, and the Unaccompanied Minors & Separated Children’s Team, participated in MECPATHS workshops. Each workshop is facilitated across 3 hours and covers topics such as: The Definitions of Trafficking in Persons with a particular focus on Child Trafficking, Child Trafficking statistics within the Global and Irish contexts including official statistics and International agency projections, and different types of Child Trafficking and associated Indicators to support victim identification.Security Industry
The security sector has a unique contribution to make to the fight against modern slavery. The nature of the work means that security personnel gain access to restricted areas; they capture evidence and they are especially primed to notice issues around safety and criminality.
MECPATHS launched a formal partnership with the Private Security Authority (PSA) in October 2023. The PSA is the first statutory agency in Ireland to mandate anti-child trafficking training for all those seeking a PSA licence to work in the Door Supervisor, Event Security and Security Guard sectors.
Minister of Justice, Helen McEntee TD, welcomed the launch of this new initiative which she said would help to save and to change countless lives. She spoke about the particular role that those working in security played in keeping people safe and her hope that this new training would help security staff spot the signs of traffickingOver 2,500 security personnel completed the online training module in the first 3 months.Youth and Community
MECPATHS has been working in partnership with numerous Youth and Community organisations across Ireland. We provide training to those individuals working with children and young people who have a keen insight into their context and behaviours. By educating Youth and Community workers around what indicators of Child Trafficking to be aware of, these frontline professionals can be cognisant of any red flags and help prevent a child from the risk of being trafficked.
Since 2020, some of our partners include: ICON (Inner City Organisations Network, Dublin), KDYS (Killarney Diocesan Youth Services), Crosscare, Alcohol Forum Ireland, and Archways.
Healthcare
Human trafficking is a major public health problem and Health care providers are often the only professionals to interact with trafficking victims during the course of their exploitation.
Healthcare providers are well-positioned to identify victims of child trafficking, including within General Practitioner Practices, Accident & Emergency centres and in Maternity Hospital settings. It is estimated that up to 88% of victims of trafficking will come into contact with a medical professional during the course of their exploitation. The impact of trafficking on victims can include Physical Health Issues, Mental Health Challenges, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Substance Abuse. Some partnerships to date have included awareness raising workshops for staff working in Crumlin Children's Hospital, Mercy University Hospital Cork, Cork University Hospital, and the Irish College of General Practitioners.We partner with numerous Tourism Training Colleges and Universities throughout Ireland. These partnerships demonstrate a growing recognition of the importance Anti-Child Trafficking training across the hospitality industry. They also illustrate a decisive commitment to the future leaders of this industry in making sure they are well equipped to help safeguard children as best they can. MECPATHS’ work with these colleges ensures adherence to international best practice when it comes to the hospitality industry’s global efforts to counter Child Trafficking.
Identifying the unique educational opportunity to support the learning of students in Tourism Training Colleges and Universities, MECPATHS developed a bespoke suite of learning materials in alignment with the existing curriculum.
Royal College of Surgeons Ireland
MECPATHS partnered with the School of Healthcare Management at RCSI to design and facilitate a 5-week course entitled: "Managing Human Trafficking Concerns in Health and Social Care Settings." The first cohort of students took the course in February 2025.
This course provides a foundational knowledge base on the topic of human trafficking, and assists participants in developing appropriate responses to suspected cases of human trafficking in their employing agencies.. This course begins with a foundational understanding of what human trafficking is, exploring its causes, global and national implications, and how it affects victims' health and well-being. Participants will learn to recognise the often subtle signs of trafficking and explore the responsibilities of their roles in identifying potential victims and supporting them.
The course also addresses the unique context of human trafficking within the Republic of Ireland, with a focus on how the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) operates and what it means for health and social care workers. Emphasis is placed on developing communication strategies for engaging with victims and managing the emotional and psychological aspects of working in this area.
Participants will also focus on developing and implementing human trafficking response protocols, overcoming common challenges, and evaluating the success of these protocols in real-world scenarios. This mix of theoretical and practical content helps participants reflect on their own roles, equipping them to contribute meaningfully to their organisation’s response to human trafficking cases.
University College Cork
MECPATHS has worked with The School of Applied Social Studies since 2019, providing workshops on Child Trafficking to Masters in Social Work students. 2022 saw the first-ever delivery of this module across the disciplines of Social Work, Business and Law. Given that prevention of and protection from trafficking necessitates inter-agency, multi-sectoral responses, this workshop was designed to facilitate collaborative, interactive and shared learning for postgraduate social work, business and law students. MECPATHS continues to recognise the growing importance of working in such close collaboration with one of the longest-running Social Work training programmes in Ireland.
Maynooth University
Since 2021, MECPATHS has partnered with the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education to deliver the first ever workshops on Child Trafficking to students in first and third years. This partnership has grown extensively through the commitment and passion of Froebel Staff and Autumn 2023 welcomed the launch of a formalised partnership with The University, MECPATHS and Froebel Department.
MECPATHS co-developed and facilitated an accredited module on Human Trafficking for students undertaking a Masters in Social Science (Rights & Policy) from 2019. From 2021, the module was made available to postgraduate students of law, international justice, criminology, gender, diversity and inclusion. MECPATHS delivered this module in partnership with social policy and social work educators from the Department of Applied Social Studies, educators from the Department of Law (MU), and the Former Head of An Garda Síochána's Human Trafficking Unit. This module helped to introduce students to the policy, practice perspectives and debates around Human Trafficking.
Hospitality Tourism & Training Colleges
MECPATHS partners with numerous Hospitality & Tourism Training Colleges throughout Ireland. These partnerships demonstrate a growing recognition of the importance of Anti-Child Trafficking training across the hospitality industry. They also illustrate a decisive commitment to the future leaders of this industry in making sure they are well equipped to help safeguard children as best they can.
MECPATHS’ work with these colleges ensures adherence to international best practice when it comes to the hospitality industry’s global efforts to counter Child Trafficking.Identifying the unique educational opportunity to support the learning of students in Tourism Training Colleges, MECPATHS developed a bespoke suite of learning materials in alignment with existing curricula. It works with students in: Shannon College of Hotel Management, the Technological University Dublin, Munster Technological University, and Griffith College Dublin.
Other University Partnerships
Since 2020, MECPATHS has formed new partnerships and delivered workshops to Master of Social Work, Social Policy, Law and Education students at the following universities:
Trinity College Dublin
University of Limerick
University College Dublin
University of Galway South East Technological UniversityMunster Technological UniversityMary Immaculate College Queens University BelfastDundalk Institute of Technology Technological University of the Shannon