Victims of human trafficking in Ireland should be granted statutory protection from prosecution, according to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC).
The human rights body, which will deliver a report into how Ireland is dealing with trafficking cases, said that someone who was, for example, forcibly made to work in an illegal industry such as the cultivation of narcotics, were essentially prisoners.
They are told by criminals that even if they escape that they will face prosecution.
IHREC said it was its recommendation to Government that it was time to remove this threat.
IHREC is Ireland's National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking - meaning that it monitors and reports on State efforts to combat this crime and it will publish its second national anti-trafficking report today.
Its first report was published in June 2022.
Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit.
In its latest report, the IHREC said that the State has made progress, but crucial gaps remain in the protection of victims of human trafficking.
IHREC Chief Commissioner Sinéad Gibney said that technology was facilitating trafficking, with social media being increasingly used to groom young people and lure them to work abroad with false promises.
She said more awareness was needed around this issue.
The organisation also said that more needed to be done around demand and to address why young men were still paying for sex even when they know women are trafficked for this purpose.
The IHREC also believes that the Direct Provision system, which is used to accommodate people in the asylum process, was not suitable for those who are traumatised by trafficking and this needs to be removed from the Department of Integration's remit.
The new Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence Agency, once established, should be responsible for oversight of specialist shelter accommodation for victims of trafficking, according to the human rights body.
However, the IHREC has welcomed the Government's proposed new national referral mechanism - a "first-of-its kind" system in Europe for including specialist NGOs as "trusted partners".
The exact number of people trafficked through this jurisdiction has been difficult to establish, but the Global Slavery Index in 2018 estimated there are 8,000 such victims in Ireland.
The US Department of State's Trafficking in Persons report, which came out in July, noted that only two prosecutions had ever occurred in this country.
The most often encountered form of exploitation is trafficking for sexual exploitation, with slightly more than half of all cases taken up with this, followed by trafficking for labour exploitation and to a lesser extent by trafficking for criminal activities (6%).
In 2022, for the first time, a suspected trafficking for organ removal was recorded.
Human trafficking in Ireland is highly gendered, as it is in the EU.
Overall, in Ireland, more women fall victims of human trafficking than men.
Over 90% of the victims of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation are women.
The African and the European Economic Area, and to a lesser degree Asia and Latin America, represent the main regions of origin for victims of trafficking in Ireland.
The State reported that there were 42 cases officially accepted in the national referral mechanism for victims of trafficking in 2022 compared to 40 in 2021.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Gibney said the first suspected case of trafficking for the harvesting of a human organ has been identified in Ireland.
She added: "There are also unconfirmed cases at the moment of trafficking of pregnant women for the sale of babies and forced adoptions."
Ms Gibney said human trafficking, particularly for sexual exploitation, is a hidden, but pervasive crime in Ireland.
"We estimate that's at about 55% of traffic. Next up would be labour exploitation and finally, criminal activity would be a smaller percentage at about 6% and that would include things like grow house cannabis, grow houses and so on," she said.
