Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are very glad to have a representative from the charity Invisible Traffick here today. I welcome Megan Phair to the Committee. She will introduce the charity and its work. The charity expressed a keen interest in contributing to the inquiry, and we are grateful to have a representative here today.

I will hand over to Megan, who is the coordinator of Invisible Traffick's Invisible to Visible project. Feel free, Megan, to make some introductory remarks. You have up to 10 minutes, and that will be followed by questions from members. It would be really helpful if you gave an introduction to your organisation and its work.

Ms Megan Phair (Invisible Traffick): Thank you so much, Chair, for having me here today. We really appreciate the opportunity to share our work with you. I coordinate the Invisible to Visible project, which is our youth programme for 12- to 24-year-olds. I will explain a bit more about what I do and give an overview of our organisation and how we contribute to different points in your terms of reference for your inquiry into relationships and sexuality education (RSE). I hope that what I say is helpful to you and adds some insight into how the issues are interlinked.

Human trafficking is the movement, coercion and exploitation of people for profit. For anybody who does not really understand the term, I will say that it means the profit of another person. That might be a very basic thing to share, but it is really important that we start from the same space. People use the terms "human trafficking" and "modern slavery" interchangeably, but the easiest way that I find to differentiate the two is to think about modern slavery as the conditions that someone is held under, rather than how it has happened and the conditions that they are under. Invisible Traffick, which I work for, is an anti-human trafficking organisation. It has been in existence since 2012 and has the vision of making the invisible visible. We prioritise safeguarding those individuals who are at risk of exploitation and those who may have been exploited across the island of Ireland. We operate in the prevention strand of the Department of Justice's modern slavery and human trafficking strategy.

Our primary body of work in Northern Ireland centres on education and takes the form of the two programmes that I am going to talk about today. Our junior education programme works mostly with primary 6 and primary 7 children. The Invisible to Visible project, which I coordinate, works with young people who are aged 12 to 24. Our junior education programme has a series of child-friendly short films that are titled 'Mission Not So Impossible'. Hopefully, Tom Cruise does not take us to court for that. [Laughter.]

Local young people are actors in those short films, which is great, as it educates them as they are doing that process. Our Invisible Traffick HQ (ITHQ) has animated characters, Visi, Bella and Brave, who provide aid to the many characters who are fighting a villain called Injustice. The junior education programme is a six-week programme that covers human trafficking and exploitation in an age-appropriate way. It utilises the videos with enticing characters and a variety of activities to enhance learning and awareness of the topic. It encourages a classroom of children to operate as detectives in order to figure out this Injustice character.

I will give you an overview of what the programme looks like over the six weeks. Week 1 is an introduction to human trafficking, exploitation and our charity and meeting the characters who will encourage learning. In week 2, we introduce the 'Trapped' video, which looks at how individuals can be lured into being trapped by being offered something that they need. It encourages children to recognise the times when they might be at risk, so it covers the kind of scenario where somebody may dangle a carrot in front of them. In week 3, we show our 'Top Secret' video, which focuses on keeping important personal information and documents safe and discusses the meaning of bravery and the importance of speaking up when something does not seem right. In week 4, our 'Digital Cipher' focuses on the risks and safety of being online. It showcases how children and young people can be coerced or tricked into child criminal exploitation. Week 5 is called 'Prints', which discusses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and how we are all unique but all have the same rights. Week 6 is our final week, which is called 'Take Your Pick'. It is a game show that allows the children to recap all their learning over the past six weeks, and it discusses forced labour and equality.

We cover a magnitude of subject matter over six weeks that benefits multiple parts of the curriculum. Teachers see the benefits of that work, but the primary benefits are for personal development and mutual understanding (PDMU) and the world around us. In one school, we saw a 69% increase in pupils who knew a lot about modern slavery and human trafficking and exploitation after completing the programme compared with nothing at the beginning, so we measure how it impacts on children and young people.

When we mention things like human trafficking, modern-day slavery and exploitation, people might have a reaction about that and about talking to children about those subjects, or they may deem it inappropriate. However, we have been embraced by a broad spectrum of schools, regardless of religious affiliation. We are confident that the education that is provided in the programme has prevented the exploitation of children and young people.

The programme is a great resource for schools across Northern Ireland, but it struggles to get funding. Those who fund charities like ours see it as the responsibility of the state to provide this type of education. The service is free for schools because they have limited budgets, and we do not want that to be a barrier to education. Teachers, as great as they are, are not experts in all subject matter, so we should not expect them to be. That is especially the case for subjects like human trafficking, which is evolving constantly, and exploitation, which is becoming more prevalent and more visible.

Teachers have reached out to us to say that they are unsure about how to keep children safe from exploitation beyond the school gates. It would be beneficial for funding to be provided for this education at state level. We are so oversubscribed with the programme that we have school bookings until January 2026. We have one staff member who runs the entire programme, and we would benefit from having two staff members.

Our other programme, which I am part of, is the Invisible to Visible project. It operates in four strands, and the first of those is awareness-raising sessions for young people. Those run for four to six weeks and cover human trafficking; types of trafficking; signs and indicators of trafficking; abusive and exploitative relationships; paramilitaries and their influence; and, ultimately, how to stay safe from those risks and who to turn to when you need support. Each four- to six-week programme is bespoke for wherever we are delivering it. As you are aware, each issue is different in each community, so we need to tailor the programmes to those communities.

Our second strand is educating parents and community members to understand the signs of exploitation and trafficking. For example, a young person may have unexplained income, or wee Jimmy may have new trainers. Understanding the links between that and potential exploitation is really important in educating communities and parents. We explain how the intergenerational trauma of a post-conflict society is fodder for exploitation and can be utilised to control our children and young people.

We also see that as an opportunity to educate wider family and community members on illegal moneylending and the risks that that has to their family. Wider to that, we train legal professionals and anybody who wants to avail themselves of training from us. We provide them with the language to describe what is going on and what is happening with the young people with whom they are working in order to allow them to spot signs of exploitation.

The third strand is our youth ambassadors, who are a sounding board and guiding light for our operations in the Invisible to Visible project. I could talk about them all day, but I do not have time. If you have any questions about them, please ask me, because they are amazing people.

The final strand of the Invisible to Visible project is our intensive one-to-one work with the most at-risk young people. That identifies the referral form for them that we have created. We will provide that form to youth workers and anyone who wants it. That strand has not been fully rolled out, but it will be by half-term, because we have seen the massive gap in the statutory services for those young people. We are attempting to fill that gap as we wait for safeguarding interventions from the Safeguarding Board. We need to have a safeguarding framework for children who are being criminally exploited, but we do not have that yet. While we wait, we know that those children are still being exploited, mostly through criminal exploitation. There has never been a male UK-born child referred to the national referral mechanism (NRM), which would identify them as a victim of criminal exploitation, when we know that plenty of boys are being exploited. That strand of our work covers the children and young people who are in alternative education — children who have been removed from formal education — and young people in youth centres who are slipping through the cracks of social services. They are the most at-risk young people.

The focus in the room today is on RSE, but our innovative programmes not only provide advice on exploitative sexual relationships but build a fuller picture around peer-to-peer exploitation and how one form of exploitation can lead to another, as human trafficking does not operate in a silo. For example, a young woman who is maybe groomed by someone using a lover-boy method — when they are engaged in a romantic relationship with the purpose of being exploited — can be exploited into forced criminality, as girls are more likely to fall under the police radar.

As much as I am talking abut different forms of exploitation, it all feeds into the same issue: young people should have their agency protected, but they do not. The exploitation of children and young people can stem from inadequate education about consent, choice and bodily autonomy. We have called for the utilisation of things like Operation Encompass, which highlights when there is domestic violence in the home. That could aid in identifying the potential exploitation threats of young people, be they sexual or criminal. It could also encourage education being tailored to specific young people in order to ensure that those who are most at risk of exploitation are provided with the education to stay safe. It would also explain why children and young people are maybe behaving in a way that is deemed to be disruptive.

To conclude, I want to talk about the rights of the child, on which we educate children in all our sessions. I know that you may know this, but it is good to be reminded of those rights as we are making decisions and talking about issues regarding children and young people. Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is about the right to participation. Adults need to take into account children and young people's opinion when we are making decisions that impact on them. We need children and young people to be educated on their bodies and choices so that they can utilise their voice and call out when something is happening. If they do not have adequate information, how can they make an informed choice? Article 19 discusses the right to protection against mental and physical violence. Our young people are being exposed to indecent images from their peers and predators. They need to be safeguarded against that mental violence and understand that it is wrong and to understand the potential for physical violence. Articles 34, 35 and 36 discuss the right to be protected from sexual exploitation, trafficking and all other forms of exploitation. Again, children need to know what that looks like in order to be safe from it. Children across the world are exploited through their phone screens and by predators, and if they do not have the knowledge of healthy and unhealthy relationships, how are they supposed to stay safe?

We want children in Northern Ireland to be extremely safe, but we need Northern Ireland to be an extremely difficult place in which to exploit and traffic children and young people. In order to do that, we need comprehensive education. Thanks.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you very much, Megan. At this early stage of our inquiry, it is great to have a provider giving evidence who delivers that sort of education in schools. It gives that on-the-ground experience and perspective on things. It is great to have you here.

I could ask a lot of things, but I am conscious that all members will want to come in. One of the things that I wanted to pick up on straight away and that I thought was interesting was the engagement with communities and parents in the Invisible to Visible project. The discussion on RSE can often become about pitting young people against parents or schools against young people. We almost feel that different camps are involved. My perspective is that this all works best when everybody is working in partnership to ensure that the provision is good and fit for purpose. Can you give me a bit more information about what that parental community engagement looks like, what it adds to the provision and how it helps to make it work on the ground in the school?

Ms Phair: We previously had three years of funding from the Big Lottery Fund. That is off the back of essentially three years of piloting an awareness-raising programme for children and young people. One of the gaps was the education of parents and communities. In the second round of funding that we have been able to get from the lottery, the large grant will be for four years. We saw that we could write that gap into our proposal. It is so beneficial, because we have young people who are going back and saying, "I told my mum about this, and mum does not understand and thinks 'What are they teaching these kids in this youth centre or school?'". We are able to offer nights for parents, and there are many requests for them in communities from Armagh to Belfast — everywhere. It builds that bigger picture in order to enable parents to understand and ensures that they do not turn a blind eye to somebody wearing Burberry trainers and instead ask a question. That is the big thing. We see young people who are spending £600 on a pair of trainers. Where did they get £600?

It is about planting that seed in parents' minds, even though they may already have 100 things going on and are spinning all those plates. If we want to keep young people safe and help them, the best way to do that is by doing it all together. Like you said, it is so important to have the backup of a parent as well as a youth worker so that those in that support network are all working together. Teachers and youth workers — everybody — need to play their part so that we can shelter that child, because we see exploitation in our communities. Some children are being exploited day in, day out, and that will not stop any time soon unless, as the adults, we make it stop.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Just to ask a practical question, are the uptake numbers for those sessions high? What do they look like?

Ms Phair: From now until Christmas, we have about eight sessions with adults. They are one-off sessions mostly. Some of them are a couple of hours long. We partner with youth organisations or youth centres that have already built relationships with parents. They are saying, "Look, I know that this maybe seems like a scary topic, but it is really important because such-and-such is going to be in a group with Megan to talk about exploitation, so it is good that you know". No parent wants their child to come home and, as the parents, be unaware of something that the child has been discussing. If we can educate them before we educate the child, those conversations will not be shocking and will not be shut down either. We are opening dialogue. The uptake is great. Each session has at least 15 parents, so, yes, it is going great.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is really helpful. I will ask one other question. You are a third-party provider in this space, and this is one of the issues that comes up a lot when we are considering how we deliver RSE in our schools. You obviously feel that there is a role for third-party provision. There is an alternative view that RSE needs to be kept in-house and that schools should deliver it. Do you have a view on what "good" would look like? Is there a place for both? What is your view on that?

Ms Phair: I view myself — I know that my colleague Chloe, who does our junior programme, feels the same about herself — as a catalyst for conversation, especially in certain schools and youth centres where those topics and conversations are really difficult. The schools are maybe controlled or bound by certain things that they can say or cannot say. I always say to young people, "There is nothing that you can say that will offend me". They are looking around for a teacher or somebody and thinking, "Can I say this?", and I say, "Say what you need to say", because if we are not giving them the space to ask questions and say difficult or maybe offensive things sometimes, how do we correct that behaviour?

We have a culture of toxic masculinity with the Andrew Tates of the world, and a lot of young men are getting their education from those people. We need to counter that. We need to let them say those things and have the space to say them so that we can counter them with an alternative and different perspective from an adult who is not trying to shame them but is just saying, "OK. Explain more of that to me. Tell me more about this" — an adult who is curious. A teacher does not have the time or resource to do that. They have to get through the curriculum. They do not have the headspace to think about what one young person in the room said. They need to focus on educating our children on the topics that matter, and we can focus on saying, "OK, we need to address this safeguarding issue or this potential safeguarding issue". They have said something like, "Pick that up like this, because I have seen this before", and, like I said, you cannot expect teachers to be experts in everything, especially complicated things like exploitation.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): After you have done a six-week block of sessions in a school, or whatever the timescale is, are resources left for the teaching staff to utilise in order to keep those ideas and issues on the agenda for the pupils?

Ms Phair: Yes. Every teacher who signs up to do our junior programme has access to our resource centre through our website. When they sign up, they will get access to all the videos if they want to revisit those later in the year. Chloe is in the videos explaining that at the end. Those teachers will have access to the resources. That is especially important at primary-school age when young people learn so much and might forget something.

The staff at alternative education spaces and youth centres are trained by me, so they all know that. I get phone calls at 10.30 pm, 11.00 pm or sometimes well past midnight from people who say, "We are outside a house party. We think that this is going on. Do you think it is trafficking?". I will say, "Yes. Phone the police and say this to them". We are accessible to those people. We are the resource. We hold the expertise for them. Does that make sense?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is great. It is really helpful. That is all from me.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that very interesting presentation, Megan. You focused on girls and the possibility of exploitation. However, one of the major problems is the lack of education among boys. You mentioned the Andrew Tate stuff and all that. How do you deal with that situation with boys?

Ms Phair: Through the Invisible to Visible project, I work with 12-year-olds, which is a really formative age. In recent years, I have had young men come up against me about the Andrew Tate stuff especially and normalised misogyny. Those young men are really vulnerable to being sexually exploited as well. We do not base our work and our programme around gender, because it is irrelevant, in the sense that all children and young people can be sexually exploited, be it through a method of control or the lover-boy method, as we call it.

We do group-work scenarios with young men. In the next couple of weeks, I will do group work exclusively with young men who are at risk of being exploited by paramilitaries. We have seen amongst young men that there is more criminal than sexual exploitation. Criminal exploitation can lead to sexual exploitation of young men, but a lot of the time it begins with a brotherhood, a partnership or a friendship. The person will say, "You're my mate", but when the young man says, "I don't want to do this any more", the person's real intentions come out to show coercive control. A lot of the issues that we see and that have been brought to light involve criminal rather than sexual exploitation of young men. We provide the language for them in that group. We are not gender-specific when we talk about consent. We talk about consent on all sides and in same-sex relationships. We cover all those topics for everyone. Just because boys and men do not talk about sexual exploitation in the same way as girls and women do does not mean that it is not happening, like I said. It is my hope that, through encouraging dialogue and those difficult conversations with staff who see them day in, day out, every single week, they can then further those conversations with the young people. Does that answer your question?

Mr Sheehan: It does indeed. One of the reasons why we want RSE to be rolled out widely among schoolchildren is that there is that toxicity and misogyny, particularly among boys. Overall, it is about consent and healthy relationships and so on. Given what you said about boys in particular having that misogynistic, Andrew Tate-type view of the world, have you found any resistance from any quarters to people participating in your programme?

Ms Phair: Yes, but that is an opportunity for dialogue. I am a youth worker by trade. Anybody who works in the community is met with resistance sometimes. That is when you invest the time. That is when you have to dig in with young men. I am a woman who is working with young men, so if there is internalised misogyny, I will come up against some of it. However, there is power in that too. There is power in being a woman who works with a young man. You are giving a positive role model of a woman to that young man and challenging him in a healthy way. I will say, "OK, I get why you feel that. It is because you are constantly being told that men are bad, women hate men and things like that".

You can empathise with the young man, because he may be constantly shushed and told that he cannot say things because they sound misogynistic, but I welcome the dialogue, because any youth worker worth their weight in salt will open up the dialogue in order for him to express his feelings, which, hopefully, will lead to change. In group scenarios, I have had beautiful, vulnerable conversations with young men, and I can see their perspective and help them have conversations with young women in the group. For example, they may say, "When you said that, it made me feel this way". It is therefore really powerful to utilise toxic misogyny in big-group dynamics with young people. We have been able to challenge the misogyny.

I had a young person who would not back down on the issue of Andrew Tate after he was arrested for trafficking. I told him that there was evidence to support the arrest, and it led to a conversation after the session with the youth worker and the young person. I told him that I understood why he thought that there was no proof, but I told him why I thought that there was. He can leave and still hold that view, but I have planted a seed that will hopefully be nurtured. I say "hopefully" a lot, but a lot is done on hope when it comes to challenging those norms, because the young person is going back to an ecosystem that may fuel the toxicity. It is all linked to the education of the community and parents, because we can then challenge the toxicity in the community environment.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that.

Mrs Mason: It has been an informative and useful session. We have talked about the education setting, but you have also referenced youth settings. Have you had an opportunity to tie in with the Education Authority (EA) in its settings? Do you have links, because many children do not hear this in school but may do so in sports clubs? Do you have an opportunity to talk to children in those settings?

Ms Phair: Chloe's programme is done in schools. My programme for 12- to 24-year-olds is not funded to be done in a formal education setting. We therefore push into the youth work and alternative education space, and, where it is possible, we will go into post-primary education settings. We have to focus on youth settings, however. The most-at-risk young people will be in the alternative education spaces and, potentially, youth centres. Our programmes are available to anyone. We are a member of Youth Work Alliance, so we have access to sports clubs that are also members. We can get invitations to those places. We have not proactively sought invitations to those places because our programmes are very subscribed, especially our junior programme. We focus on elements of junior and senior youth provision. A big focus for us is on trying to get into other places, because it is easy to think that RSE happens in schools, but a lot of education happens in a youth setting, outside of school. A lot of education happens in the home. There are a lot of spaces where formal education stops and other education is provided.

We go into EA youth centres, and we have had meetings with it about our project and about funding issues. There is limited funding available, and we have not been provided with funding from the Education Authority or any other statutory body. The lottery and other organisations that fund the voluntary sector are not willing to fund something that should be provided by the state. I hope that that answers your question.

Mrs Mason: Thank you.

Mrs Guy: Thank you. Your presentation was really great and informative. You are so passionate about your work, and that translates. We have talked about the difference between young women and men. Do you tailor sessions to the environment into which you are going? Do you get a group of girls together? Do you look at the location for the session, as there may be paramilitary concerns in the area, or do you provide a one-size-fits-all session? Do you get victims to come in to give their testimony to the kids receiving the information? In the sessions, if there are indications or red flags from young people that they are being exploited or are particularly vulnerable, what do you do? Do you make referrals to other agencies, or even to the PSNI, or do you step back from doing that?

Ms Phair: The answer to your first question is yes. We do a needs analysis of the communities that we go into. I am not naive about the realities of the communities in which we work. We have to tailor things differently from Broughshane to Belfast, because there are different needs and different risks in different communities. What a young person may deem to be unsafe in one community will not be deemed to be unsafe in another. We have a baseline from which to operate. We have a structure, and, from that, we tailor a bespoke programme for our youth in particular. Similarly, our schools programme consists of the same six short films, but the activities are tailored to the needs of those young people. If we, say, need more time somewhere, we will take that time so that the message is not lost.

For the Invisible to Visible project in particular, because we are dealing with teenagers who are at a really formative age, we have to do a needs analysis. We have a great partnership with the police, especially with its modern slavery and human trafficking unit, and we actively work at that good relationship. We are also part of the NGO engagement forum on modern slavery and human trafficking, so we build relationships through that.

For red-flag issues or other issues that we encounter, we follow the safeguarding procedures of the centre that we are in. We have our own robust safeguarding policy. If there are disclosures, we keep a copy of them under lock and key for 99 years, so, they will still be there long after I am gone. It is therefore important that we follow the safeguarding procedures, but we also need to respect the place that we are in. If we want community buy-in and people to keep inviting us back to educate the community, we say, "Hi. Michelle said this to me, and this is what I think is happening. Can we have another conversation with Michelle, or can you keep an eye out?" With something that may not quite be a red flag but may be an amber flag, I will have that conversation. Then, the next week, if Michelle says another thing to me, I will say, "Michelle said this again. I think that this is the time to refer it on".

As part of Youth Work Alliance, we are first responders under the national referral mechanism, which refers people as being victims of modern slavery or human trafficking. Accessing the national referral mechanism form is really difficult, however, because it can be done through only one Home Office email address. It is a whole palaver, and we have raised it as an issue with the Department of Justice to sort out with the Home Office. If we suspect someone of being trafficked, we will therefore not follow the traditional safeguarding route. There will obviously be a safeguarding route for children and young people up to a certain point, but we will also need to make a referral to the NRM for them. Does that make sense?

Mrs Guy: The fact that you go in over a number of weeks gives you the opportunity to see children and young people who are holding something back. Then, as they build trust with you, they will share a little more. That is an advantage of your work. It is good to know that you have some flexibility to use your judgement. That is great. Thank you.

Ms Phair: We see it. Somebody who is working and living in the community may not see something as being a red flag, but I will say, "Hang on a minute here. This is a bit strange". In communities in which we have worked, that has led us to see that a person is being exploited in some way, shape or form. We can build a bigger picture. We have a bird's-eye view, whereas I know from working in youth centres that, when you are in the middle of it, you are firefighting. You are constantly trying to deal with all the issues. In the same way, in a school, when you have a perspective from outside coming in, somebody may notice something that you have not seen. That is important.

Mrs Guy: Your experience is in that particular zone, so you will perhaps be more tuned into what the tell-tale signs and red flags are than a teacher who just delivers the information.

Ms Phair: Yes. Exploitation and human trafficking is my one thing — I have got my blinders on — whereas teachers are thinking, "This person is getting bullied. This is happening; I need to deliver this, this and this". The situation is too chaotic for them to be able to say, "We need to deal with this issue". They will do so, of course, if the need arises, but, where there is an issue, it may be something that our assistance can help to discover sooner.

Mrs Guy: Thank you.

Mr Martin: Thank you, Megan, for your presentation, which was so encouraging to hear. As I listened, I realised that this is a really dark area. Some of the things that happen are so appalling, but you are shining a light into what is a dark space. I want to encourage you in the work that you do.

As you went through the presentation, you mentioned something about a safeguarding framework, but I did not get it all down, because you talk quite fast.

Ms Phair: Sorry.

Mr Martin: That is all right.

Ms Phair: We get 10 minutes, you know.

Mr Martin: You get 10 minutes, but you were doing very well. You provided a lot of info in that time.

What you said was along the lines of not having a safeguarding framework in place yet. Do you remember? Will you tell me a wee bit more about that? What is it, and why is it not in place?

Ms Phair: I have had a personal battle about that for perhaps the past three years with the Department of Justice, the Safeguarding Board and others. Child criminal exploitation has become a new thing that everybody is talking about, which is great. Obviously, it is linked to RSE, but, as I said, it is separate from it. If somebody comes up to me in a youth centre and says, "I have been criminally exploited. A paramilitary is forcing me to hold weapons, hold or sell drugs, or whatever", and I reply, "OK. You have been criminally exploited. We need to make a referral to the NRM and contact the police. We need to safeguard you", I can phone the police and make a referral, but there is no safeguarding framework in place for that child. When a child has been sexually exploited, we have steps to take and a safeguarding framework in place for that child, but we do not yet have a framework in place for when a child has been criminally exploited.

The Department of Justice and the Department of Health are working together on an child criminal exploitation committee to create that framework. That will take time, as all those wonderful things do. They take so much time, but I am impatient for change and impatient on behalf of children who are being exploited, and hence our referral form and our process of doing intensive one-to-one work to try to prevent further exploitation of those children and young people. I have networked with other organisations to support young people and to offer a wrap-around service for them as we wait for the Safeguarding Board and the exploitation committee to come up with the framework. I am so excited that we are even working on a framework. As much as it is my personal battle and something that I bring up constantly, I feel really encouraged that it has become an issue that we are talking about. A couple of years ago, I was a lone wolf talking about it, but we are now talking about it in a bigger space, and that is great.

At the minute, there is therefore no safeguarding framework in place for when a child has been criminally exploited, and no male child who is UK-born and indigenous to Northern Ireland has been referred to the national referral mechanism. That is very alarming, because we know that boys are being exploited and used in our communities. We know that they are constantly being used as pawns in a bigger game. It is really disturbing.

Mr Martin: How long have DOJ and DOH been working on the exploitation committee to come up with the framework?

Ms Phair: The Safeguarding Board hired someone five months ago, I think, to do that work. Research was released in, I want to say, November 2023. It may have been earlier than that. I cannot remember the exact date. Colm Walsh released his research on the issue that showed the need that had to be addressed. You can find that research. It is really good. It is on child criminal exploitation.

Previously, there was the child protection senior officials group (CPSOG). That has become the exploitation committee. Senior police officials and loads of other people are on the committee. We are not on it, but we are in the NGO engagement group, and we constantly challenge the committee on when we will get the framework.

Mr Martin: This is my first time on the Committee, so I do not know how everything works. Is this the sort of thing about which the Committee can write to somebody to ask, "How are you getting on with that?"? It would be really interesting to follow up on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): At the end of an evidence session, we usually gather views on any potential actions to take, arising out of what we have heard. If you are happy to bank that idea, we will collate any actions at the end.

Mr Sheehan: May I ask a quick question, Chair? Pardon my ignorance, but what is an MRM?

Ms Phair: It is an NRM: the national referral mechanism. It is the means by which victims of modern slavery and human trafficking are identified. With adults, you need an act, a means and a purpose, which means that you need to know more information about how an incident took place, how the person is being exploited and who is exploiting the person. We do not necessarily need to have names, but we do need concrete evidence to verify the information. For a child, you need only an act and a means. I could have a text message that I have saved from a child that, for example, says, "Such-and-such has called me out to sell drugs", and that counts as evidence to identify that child's victimhood.

When an adult goes through the NRM process — say, an adult female who has been sexually exploited — that will trigger safeguarding protocols for that victim, who will then get legal aid support and be housed. A lot of the time that adult may be housed by Women's Aid, which will prioritise her care and keep her safe. There will then be 45 days for evidence to be collated to prove that that adult female has been exploited. She will prove that she has been exploited. The Home Office will be given reasonable grounds to say, "OK. We think you've been exploited". It is the Home Office that will decide that. If it can then be given conclusive grounds, it will say, "Yes, you are a victim of exploitation and trafficking", so the adult female can then be safeguarded.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I am conscious that Danny is online and may have been trying to come in. Danny, just shout if you want to come in.

Mr Brooks: Thanks for your presentation. It has been interesting. A lot of my questions have already been asked. I picked up on the difference between exploitation of males and females. For the former, it is more about criminal exploitation, while, for the latter, it is more about —

Ms Phair: Sexual exploitation.

Mr Brooks: — sexual exploitation. I will dig a little deeper. What trends are you seeing? More specifically, what does "criminal exploitation" mean? Are we talking mainly about drugs? What are the other elements that we may not be thinking about. What are we seeing in our schools?

Ms Phair: You need only watch the news to see criminal exploitation of children. Look at the seven-year-old in Derry who had a petrol bomb in his hand. Who provided that petrol bomb? That is criminal exploitation of that child. On whose behalf was he carrying out criminal activity? A seven-year-old does not have access to a petrol bomb, so who provides that it?

We see it when children are being forced out to riot. There have been countless testimonies from, and research done on, children who have been encouraged to riot to clear a debt that they owe to paramilitary organisations or organised crime groups — whichever it benefits — so criminal exploitation can look like that. It can be selling counterfeit goods, holding weapons or drugs or dealing or cooking drugs. They are then given pennies. The risk is massive, but they think that the reward is amazing. They are not criminal masterminds. Rather, they are children being coerced through whatever means.

As soon as they say, "Actually, I don't want to do this", that is when the tune changes. The nature of the coercion is no longer, "We'll give you £200 here and there". It changes to, "You'll do this or else. We know where your mum lives. We know this and that." Those people are not operating in the shadows. They are known members of the community. The young people and youth workers whom I speak to say that the dogs in the street know them. Everybody uses that phrase, so everybody knows. The community's relationship with the police is so fractured, however, that people do not want to engage with them in that way, as they are viewed as being touts if they do so, so the police do not have the evidence on which to act.

We go in as an organisation to educate children and young people on those issues. We gather anecdotal evidence to communicate with the police or researchers about what is happening so that we can make a bigger noise in different forums for those young people. If we are to advocate for their rights and amplify their voice, we need to do so in the proper way and through proper mediums.

As I said, if you look at the news, you will therefore see criminal exploitation.

Mr Brooks: That is a familiar story, and I absolutely agree with everything that you have said. I was just trying to see whether there is anything going on with which we may not be familiar. You drew a distinction between paramilitaries and organised crime groups. That is a very Northern Ireland thing to do, so we understand what is being said there.

Do you consider the traditional paramilitary groups with which we are familiar on the republican and loyalist sides as being responsible for some of that exploitation, as I expect, or is a growing element of other organised crime involved? In your experience, has there been a change as we move further away from the Troubles, or is the situation remaining very much the same?

Ms Phair: It is difficult to say. The Firm is a massive organised crime group that we know is operating. You mentioned paramilitaries and organised crime groups. I differentiate between the two terms because paramilitaries have emotional baggage that they can fling on. They operate in communities in which they can say, "Your mum lives here", or whatever. Yes, organised criminals can do that, but if people are known in the community and you see them every time that you go to your local shop, they are able to emotionally exploit you and make you believe in some cause that is long gone, and you will respond in a different way to them than you would to any kind of organised criminal.

From what I can see, paramilitary groups are transitioning more into organised crime groups. 'The Irish News' contained an interesting article today about that, in which a young person told the story about how it used to be for a cause but that it is now all about drugs and money. That is so true. We see so much of that activity. Those people are operating with impunity, and the cost of that is the pillaging of children and young people in our communities. That is neither right nor fair, to be honest.

Mr Brooks: Regardless of the terms that we use, I never thought that it was a legitimate way in which to fight for those causes in any case, but thank you very much for your presentation.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will check whether Danny wants to come in in a moment, but I have a follow-up question on RSE. We are coming to the end of our evidence session, so can you briefly give us an idea of the impact of early education on healthy relationships at primary-school level on protecting children from exploitation later in life?

Ms Phair: Most people who exploit children are people whom the children know. If we educate children about boundaries, consent and bodily autonomy, they will be able to voice their concerns. If we can provide them with the language, that will protect them throughout their life. Our staff members have spoken with so many different teachers who are scared to say certain things or are worried about such things as the response from parents.

It is even about our coming in and saying things about friendships, because peer-to-peer exploitation is rife. Peers who exploit those children are themselves being exploited, so we have exploited exploiters operating. When we give children the language, and they know the scientific names for their body parts, countless sources of evidence state that that knowledge safeguards and protects them. That is a known fact, and you can find evidence of it anywhere.

Our work and education is about boundaries, consent and "things that feel funny in your tummy". We ask, "When things do not feel right or OK, what do you do?". We talk about trusted adults and ensure that children do not have only one trusted adult. It is very easy for people to say, "Your mum or dad is a trusted adult", but a child's mum or dad could be an abuser. We therefore say, "Who are three trusted adults whom you have in your life, with one of them not being linked to your family?". It is important to have those conversations. Having them keeps children safe throughout their whole life.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is really helpful. Thank you.

Danny, do you want to come in at all? More to the point, can you hear us?

Mr Sheehan: He has fallen asleep on the sunbed.

The Committee Clerk: He has emailed me a few times.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will take that as a no to the latter question. I am sure that he would have had questions that he wanted to come in with.

The Committee Clerk: He said that he did not plan to come in with questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is grand. Unless members want to add anything to the conversation, I will conclude by saying that it has been really great to hear from you. Yours is more evidence to feed into our reflections and deliberations on what good RSE provision might look like in Northern Ireland. Thank you very much for your time.

Ms Phair: Thank you so much.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I emphasise that responding in writing to the consultation is an avenue that is open to you as well, should you want to confirm any of what you said today in a formal briefing document.

Ms Phair: We will. Thanks.