Traffic in sex slaves could rise if Britain rejects European anti-vice strategy
Campaigners against sex trafficking call today for a major crackdown on the thousands of brothels in Britain amid accusations that government indifference to the issue is encouraging pimps to target the UK.
The demand comes 10 days after a Romanian father and son, Bogdan, 51, and Marius Nejloveanu, 23, were given jail sentences for trafficking five young women to England. Marius repeatedly raped and beat the women and received the longest sentence for trafficking offences in the UK, 21 years.
One of the women, Marinela Badea, was trafficked in 2008 aged 17 and forced to work in massage parlours and saunas in the Midlands and Manchester. In a shocking interview with the Observer, she described a life of regular rape, brutal beatings and sex with paying clients up to 12 times a day. When she tried to escape, she was savagely punished. "I got punched, a knife in my head, my hair was pulled until it came out," she said.
Europol, the EU criminal intelligence agency, confirmed to the Observer that minors were still being trafficked to Britain and warned that the issue of pan-European trafficking remained a "big" problem. Charities have criticised falling prosecution rates for trafficking.
Abigail Stepnitz, national co-ordinator for the Poppy Project support service, said police should urgently target the brothels masquerading as saunas, massage parlours and private flats. Almost 6,000 have been identified in England and Wales.
Stepnitz said: "The focus on trafficking has been to remove immigration offenders or to prosecute organised criminal networks. From our experience the focus has not neccessarily been on addressing the presence of brothels that create an environment where trafficking can thrive. That has never been the focus."
The last major crackdown, Operation Pentameter 2 in 2008, saw 822 premises visited and the arrest of more than 528 individuals.
Fears are growing among campaigners that ministers appear intent on downgrading trafficking as a priority, a charge denied by the government. In addition, they accuse ministers of attempting to sideline the issue by removing trafficking from the government's violence against women and girls strategy. Tomorrow, trafficking campaigners are due to attend the Home Office for a 90-minute consultation on a proposed new trafficking strategy.
On Wednesday, the government is expected to come under further attack from health experts and MPs at a conference focusing on trafficking issues, entitled Stopping Traffick. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper will condemn the government's decision not to sign up to the EU Directive on Human Trafficking. Cooper believes coalition leaders David Cameron and Nick Clegg are sending the wrong signal to traffickers by not endorsing the directive on common European efforts to combat the trade in sex slaves.
Davide Ellero, senior specialist at Europol, said that minors continued to be trafficked for sex to the UK. He said: "The problem is big and it stays big. But there are no statistics at European level because every country monitors in a different way."
Source: The Observer
Cross-Channel operation leads to arrest of 26 people suspected of attempting to smuggle hundreds of migrants to Britain
French and British police say they have broken a human trafficking ring, arresting 26 people who were attempting to smuggle hundreds of migrants to the UK.
Scores of officers raided properties in Kent and France today in what is believed to be one of the biggest initiatives of its kind between forces from the two countries.
Damian Green, the immigration minister, said the arrests proved the value of close co-operation between the UK and France.
"Secure border controls are an absolute priority if we are to put an end to abuses of the system, and prevent people from coming to the UK through illegal routes," he said.
"That is why I am committed to working with my French counterpart to continue to improve security, and why we will continue with our successful summer operations against illegal immigration."
The French authorities said 18 suspected traffickers were arrested in France and eight more in Britain.
They are accused of smuggling hundreds of Albanians and Sri Lankans to the UK, charging between £1,500 and £4,000 a person.
Dozens of migrants were also detained during the operation, according to a statement from the French immigration ministry.
Last year France and the UK signed a deal aimed at tackling the growing number of migrants gathered at Calais. The agreement saw the UK allocate £15m to tighten British border controls and France promise to begin voluntary and forced repatriations.
The deal, agreed as Gordon Brown met Nicolas Sarkozy for a pre-G8 summit, was hailed as a breakthrough by the UK authorities who said it was the first time France had explicitly agreed to step up removal flights from northern France.
In September last year the French authorities closed down a makeshift camp in Calais known as "the jungle", which was home to hundreds of migrants, mostly Afghans. It signalled the start of a widespread crackdown by the French authorities that some campaign groups say has lead to the heavy-handed treatment of minority groups across the country.
The French authorities said today's arrests were part of an ongoing operation.
Green said: "This operation demonstrates how crucial it is that the UK Border Agency [UKBA], Serious Organised Crime Agency [Soca], the police, and French law enforcement work together to crack down on immigration crime, and put a stop to the trafficking that preys on the vulnerable and destroys lives."
The Home Office said the operation was co-ordinated by the Joint Intelligence Unit in Folkestone, which consists of the UKBA, Soca, Kent police, the French border police and the French anti-illegal immigration agency.
