17 October 2011
October 18th is UK Anti-Slavery Day. Far from being something that reflects the history books Anti-Slavery Day was incorporated into law in 2010 by a Private Members Bill put forward by Anthony Steen, former Member of Parliament for Totnes, to remind us that slavery continues to exist in the UK today in the form of human trafficking. The Anti-Slavery Day Act 2010 specifically recognises children and it is truly shocking that one in four people referred to the government's 'National Referral Mechanism' (NRM) for victims of trafficking is under 18 years of age .
In the two years to March 2011, police and local authorities referred 390 children to the NRM. 186 children were referred because of concerns around labour exploitation, including domestic servitude; 115 were referred because of sexual exploitation and 89 were referred with the primary exploitation type unknown. 47 nationalities in total were noted and the top 3 countries of origin for children were Vietnam (107); Nigeria (48) and China (45). A staggering 85 % of all these children were under 15 years of age at the time they were found. However these figures represent the tip of the iceberg as not all children are identified and not all get referred because agencies simply don't know of the NRM. The NRM is simply a Home Office administrative process and doesn't automatically guarantee the child will be kept safe and be protected.
There is no comprehensive reporting framework on the numbers of children trafficked to the UK and being looked after by local authorities. Subsequently there is no single agency responsible for mapping outcomes for this group of highly vulnerable and traumatised children, most of whom will have missed out on basic education as a result of being sold and abused, over and over again.
Children are trafficked to the UK, within the UK and out of the UK for a range of purposes including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, forced criminal activity such as cannabis growing and pickpocketing, and benefit fraud. The commonality across all these children is that they will have suffered abuse and neglect, often multiple forms of physical and sexual abuse, over a sustained period of time. Child trafficking is a child protection issue of the highest order. It is not, as some officials often frame it, an immigration issue – it is child abuse requiring complex child abuse investigations and it has significant implications for those who are responsible for the care and welfare of children and young people.
Children who are trafficked are often moved from place to place, moving between local authority and police boundaries. Significantly there are very few, less than 5, convictions for child trafficking, using the UK's human trafficking legislation. The UK has no specialist child trafficking police investigation unit. Even London's Metropolitan Police "The Met" does not have a single specialist unit for the investigation of child trafficking, although various teams including the Met's "Paladin Team" deal with child trafficking from time to time as part of their general workload. The lack of one single focal point makes it difficult for other agencies, such as health, education, children's social services and voluntary sector agencies to pool information, receive quality advice and importantly get access to justice for children who are often both victim and vulnerable witness.
The impact of not getting immediate specialist support can be shattering. Child victims of trafficking can be still under the control of their trafficker when first encountered by police, immigration or social work teams. Children are groomed what to say and will almost certainly not have their own identification documents. Even after being taken into care children can be threatened, coerced or forced to return to the trafficker. Training and clear procedures are needed to ensure safety plans are enacted within the 'Golden Hour', the very first hour after encountering the child and the immediate 24 hours after that. However, these plans should not be dependent on a child's disclosure but by a robust and early identification process that acts quickly on the basis of professional 'I suspect but I cannot prove' that will trigger a multi-agency assessment and protection protocols.
The UK Government has ratified a number of international instruments that require it to take all steps to provide 'special protection measures' for child victims of trafficking, including specific references to guardianship. Article 16 of the EU Directive on combating trafficking is to "take the necessary measures to ensure that, where appropriate, a guardian is appointed to unaccompanied child victims of trafficking in human beings". This is yet to happen as part of the government's human trafficking strategy but ECPAT UK is campaigning vigorously so that each child who is suspected as being trafficked would have one person that they could trust, who could act in their best interest and who would assist them navigate the maze of legal, welfare, immigration, health and education services. It is important to recognise that in most circumstances these vulnerable, isolated children will not speak English and will have no-one in the UK who they know or who can help them. It is not uncommon for family members in their home country to have been complicit in the sale or traffic of children and therefore it can never be assumed that going home will be safe.
ECPAT UK was the first organisation to uncover the extremely high numbers of suspected and known trafficked children who have gone missing from Local Authority care and are never found. ECPAT UK's 2007 report Missing Out report identified 80 known or suspected child victims of trafficking in a small-scale study in Manchester, Newcastle and the West Midlands. Forty-eight of these children went missing whilst in local authority care. In the same year, the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP) estimated in its own report that over an 18 month period, 183 of 330 victims of child trafficking had gone missing from local authority accommodation illustrating major problems in providing safe placement.
The concept of 'safeness' and protection can only be fully realised when children believe that they have a safe haven that affords them more protection than being back on the streets or with the traffickers. There are no quality standards across the UK for the provision of 'safe accommodation' for child victims of trafficking but it is incumbent on all professionals to work collaboratively to ensure a circle of safety is placed around the child without waiting for them to ask for it.
There are concerns that human traffickers could target the Olympics and the government is working with a range of agencies, including charities like ECPAT UK to deter and detect trafficking. The main identified risk to children is through organised criminal gangs exploiting children through forced begging and pick pocketing. The Olympics presents an opportunity for those criminal gangs already active in the UK to capitalise on local communities and a huge influx of visitors. Hugh Robertson, Minister for Sport and the Olympics recently stated that 'Regular threat briefings take place between the Secretary of State, the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, and the Olympic Intelligence Centre, and departments will be continuously reviewing the threat of human trafficking'.4
1 http://www.soca.gov.uk/about-soca/about-the-ukhtc/statistical-data
2 Missing Out ; A Study of Child Trafficking in the North-West, North-East and West Midlands Beddoe C ECPAT UK London 2007
3 A Scoping Report on Child Trafficking in the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and Border and Immigration Agency, London June 2007
4 House of Commons, Hansard Written Answers for 11th January 2011
Christine Beddoe is Director of ECPAT UK
ECPAT UK (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children) has been campaigning against the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children since 1994. ECPAT UK works in the UK and with international partners to research, provide training and advice and provide a valuable advocacy and support network for child victims of trafficking. ECPAT UK advises the All Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficking of Women and Children by providing guidance and support on issues specific to child trafficking.
www.ecpat.org.uk
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