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3.51 pm
Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow): I find myself in the unusual position of welcoming a Home Office Bill—I have not been too happy with the last two or three Home Office Bills that I have spoken about. The Bill deals with some difficult areas but, as we have already seen in our debate, there is a lot of general agreement about its direction. It is now a question of looking at the detail and getting it right.
I want to say something about the provisions on trafficking but, before I do so, I will comment on what the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said about the difficult argument about anonymity in rape cases. I do not think that anyone is now arguing that there should not be anonymity for the complainant. The need for such anonymity has been generally accepted for some time, as it encourages reporting. We know about failure rates in the system and the low rate of conviction, but should the defendant have the right to anonymity? I believe that the Bill as it stands goes too far—we ought to look at what happens before a charge is made, not after. What the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey said about publicity is the key to the problem. It is often the police who pass information on. The News of the World discovers that a particular individual is being taken to a particular police station on a particular day because it has been told by someone in the police force, who has probably done it for a fairly small amount of money. Money often changes hands when such information is passed on, and we have to look at ways of dealing with that through the police service and the press, rather than start to extend anonymity provisions, as the amendment in the Lords has done.
Sir Paul Beresford: The hon. Gentleman may be gratified to hear that most of the senior policemen I have talked to would back what he is saying, as they have had many a case destroyed by publicity. If they could catch the individuals who have released that information to the papers they would be gratified and there would be heavy repercussions.
Mr. Gerrard: I am sure that is right. There can be nothing more frustrating for a senior policeman who has been investigating a case than to have it damaged or destroyed by someone leaking what is happening.
The question of trafficking was addressed my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), and I shall try not to repeat what she said. I have been interested in the subject for some time, as there are links with the smuggling that goes on in immigration and asylum cases, which are one of my major areas of interest. Two or three years ago, like a
number of other hon. Members, I took part in the parliamentary police scheme, and spent a little time with the Chinese unit and the vice unit in the Metropolitan police. It was interesting to hear what police officers, particularly those in the Chinese unit, had to say about the amount of smuggling and trafficking of people that was going on.There is a distinction between smuggling and trafficking, as the Government now recognise. If someone who is trying to get into the country for immigration purposes or to work illegally pays someone to bring them here, it is almost a commercial transaction. They pay to be brought in and that is the end of the business, whereas trafficking is quite different and ends up with people being exploited when they get into the country. It is a modern form of slavery, involving debt bondage—debts that they can never pay off, and perhaps with a family back in the country of origin still paying off a debt.
As the Bill deals with sexual offences, I understand why it refers to trafficking for sexual exploitation, but I hope we will not lose sight of the fact that a considerable amount of trafficking goes on for labour purposes. That involves not only children, but adults, and it is not just for domestic service. There are other areas, especially in some service industries, where a significant amount of trafficking for labour purposes goes on. That is just as bad as trafficking of the sort addressed by the Bill.
Many of the people—certainly, many of the adults—who have been trafficked may well come to the UK thinking that they are going to work in a legitimate job. They may even come knowing full well that they are going to work in the sex business. People are told that they can earn good money working in a club, in a strip club or as a prostitute, but they may not understand what is really going to happen to them when they get here.
Some poor countries—for example, Thailand—have an indigenous sex industry. I recently saw it suggested that because of the extent of the sex industry in Bangkok, the amount of money sent back to poor families in the rural areas of Thailand by women working in the sex industry in Bangkok exceeds any Government aid to those areas. Working in the sex trade is almost an accepted way of getting some money to the family, so we can understand how somebody might think, "If I could go to London, I could make a lot of money", but when they get here, they find that they are not making any money at all and are virtual slaves.
It is probably as profitable a criminal activity internationally to traffick people as to deal in drugs. There is not a huge amount of hard evidence about what is happening in the UK. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North mentioned the ECPAT study and the study that was reported in the police research paper published in 2000. Those papers suggested that there might be 1,500 women a year being trafficked into the UK to work in prostitution. The police research paper reported on a check carried out by police on 50 flats in Soho. In those 50 flats, the majority of the women were migrants—125 of the 148 women were from the Balkans, mostly from Albania. There is clearly organisation there. Very few English women now work in the flats in Soho. The work has been taken over.
Although some of those women may not have been trafficked, there is little doubt that a significant number would have been.My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North is right—the key to dealing with the problem is not just introducing legislation that imposes penalties, but making that legislation work. We will make it work only if the people who have been trafficked are genuinely regarded as victims and are given the support that they need to be prepared to give evidence. The pilot scheme is under way and it has Home Office funding. I think that it has 11 places for women who have been trafficked. That is a small number, but it is a beginning. West Sussex social services have been running a safe house specifically for child victims. We have got to get the links with our policies on removal and asylum right. If the message that goes out to victims is, "If the police find you, you will be deported," it is highly unlikely that many of them will be willing to risk giving evidence. Deporting somebody may mean that they go back to the people who trafficked them in the first place and fall back into risk.
I know that some work has been done, particularly through the Metropolitan police, to look at ways of getting more evidence for prosecutions through intelligence gathering. We need to encourage such work and put more effort in so that cases do not depend so much on individuals being prepared to act as witnesses. There are other information sources, but there is no question but that a lot of police forces do not give much attention to them. They do not have much knowledge and experience in such things and assume that they do not happen in their area. Northampton is a good example; it is clear that not only London is affected and that such activities could be happening anywhere in the country.
Furthermore, if we are going to make the legislation work, we will undoubtedly need prevention campaigns in countries of origin. In many cases, countries of origin are poor and countries of reception, such as the UK, are rich. The reason why trafficking operates in that direction is obvious. The movement is not always from poor to rich, but that is very often the case.
I am pleased that we have made progress. It was back in 2000 that we signed the European Union protocol stating that we would introduce legislation on trafficking. We have got to make the arrangements work and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider how we can extend them into the areas that the Bill does not cover.
I wish to raise two other issues of concern. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) referred to people who are on the sex offenders register in respect of acts that are no longer an offence. For example, a gay man who was convicted for involvement in sexual activity with a 17-year-old will have ended up on the register. I understand the difficulties that are involved in dealing with this issue. At the time of conviction, there may not have been much questioning as to whether an act was consensual if it was an offence anyway. The Home Office may have reservations about taking people off the sex offenders register when the act was not consensual—a matter that might not be easy to distinguish. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) follows my point. If the offence was involvement in sexual activity with someone under
18, the court may not have concerned itself with the issue of consent. Nevertheless, even if we cannot agree to an amendment that wipes people off the register, I hope that we can consider mechanisms enabling people to apply for removal and put forward the facts of their case.
Mr. Chris Bryant (Rhondda): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, not least because I have not been present in the Chamber for most of the debate, although I have seen it on television. He is making a very important point. Does he share the belief of many people that taking some of the names off the register will make it a more reliable source of information in the hands of the police and local communities?
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