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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Fiona Mactaggart): I thank the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) for helping to achieve one of his own demands: placing this issue higher up the agenda of public debate. As he says, it has been discussed in Parliament in questions and the Adjournment debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble). Nevertheless, it is one of the subjects that is not sufficiently addressed in public discourse, and the hon. Gentleman has contributed to raising it further up the agenda by initiating this debate today.
The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that we need to keep the bright light of public attention on the issue because the thing that feeds the shady and evil world of the child traffickers is that some people do not believe that things could be so; they do not believe the horrific accounts of individual children who, as he described, have been trafficked into prostitution and domestic servitude in this country. Child trafficking is probably the most grotesque violation of human rights that I can conceive of happening in this country, and it is a trade that transcends national borders and feeds other forms of crime. As he pointed out, there is evidence that child trafficking and drug trafficking work in a partnership that enhances both.
It is clear that we need to work together, across agencies and Departments, with citizens and voluntary organisations if we are to tackle child trafficking effectively.
We know that detailed statistics are hard to come by. One of the problems with illegal trades is that we cannot count how often they occur, but we get into trouble for saying that and are told that we do not know what is going on. One of the fundamental things about illegality is that because it is illegal it is hard to quantify. The hon. Gentleman set out the scale of the problem according to the UNICEF study. A study in 1995 by the International Organisation for Migration estimated that 500,000 women were trafficked to the EU. Let us be clear about this: if 500,000 women are being trafficked to the EU, I would be surprised if the scale of child trafficking was not higher than most estimates suggest, although we cannot get a precise figure on that.
There is a serious problem to address. The Government operate in four ways. The first and most important, as I think the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, is to prevent trafficking from happening
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in the first place. That involves working in source countries. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for International Development is in the Chamber. That reflects the seriousness with which the Government take the matter. Indeed, I spoke to the Secretary of State for International Development about it this morning. He was eager to know what happens tonight.
Secondly, we are putting in place an enforcement response to clamp down on the traffickers. Thirdly, we are trying to punish them when we catch them. We will not catch them all, but when we do we need to ensure that appropriate punishment and tough sentences are in place. Fourthly, we need to do all we can to support the victims of child trafficking to help them to overcome the trauma of trafficking and to restart their lives.
On the preventive work, I do not want to talk at length about the work that we need to do to tackle poverty, ignorance and the conditions that make a life of servitude in a rich country something to which someone might aspire. Those are part of the reason why some children's parents believe the tales. The hon. Gentleman referred to Dayo. Often enough families believe that their children might have a better life to consent to something that they also think might be other than that. It is important that we deal with abject poverty that enables parents to con themselves.
It is also important, however, that we ensure that education is in place. We must have the voice to ensure that people back home in source countries know about the consequences of trafficking. We must help to stop traditional practices mutating into exploitation. The example of west African children fostered over here and turned into domestic slaves, such as in the Dayo case, is not uncommon. We need to ensure that the traditional practice of sharing child care across families does not end up in another Victoria Climbié case. Children must not end up in servitude.
The first part of the Home Office's preventive approach is the Reflex work. Reflex Romania is one example of that. Romania is a source country for a range of trafficking. At the beginning of 2002, the UK and Romania agreed to establish a central intelligence unit based in Bucharest, focusing on the organised immigration crime that originates from and transits through Romania. The project started in April 2002 and in its first year of operational activity 105 criminal groups were identified, 48 were disrupted and 90 individuals were arrested.
We have launched a twinning project, which is EU-funded, with the Czech Republic, which the UK is leading and running in partnership with the Netherlands to develop law enforcement in the Czech Republic to deal with trafficking.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the voice of those already in this country. We have been investigating how we can use publicity to raise awareness of the consequences of falling victim to trafficking. Hon. Members will recall that when a large number of Roma were arriving in the UK and claiming asylum, there seems to have been video in Romania suggesting that everything was wonderful in Britain and that people who came here would have all their bills paid and have
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a happy life. It is clear that propaganda from the UK can act as a drag, so with non-governmental organisations—this does not necessarily work best when initiated by Governments—we are looking at how previous publicity activity worked and making plans for activity to reach those most at risk of being trafficked. We are working collaboratively with NGOs and the Government in Romania.
The Department for International Development has funded radio programmes, for example, in other areas. We must learn from each example and make sure that as part of our work overseas we fund the message that the hon. Gentleman rightly highlighted. We have committed almost £9 million to the International Labour Organisation's international programme for the elimination of child labour for work in the Greater Mekong region. The programme involves a number of interventions to raise awareness, prevent trafficking and reintegrate survivors of trafficking into society. That is particularly important for children. If we return them to the place where they were trafficked from, we need to ensure that there is a safe place for them to return to. That may be difficult to assess from the UK, but their future prospects may be better in their own environment with their own language and culture.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Lady rightly referred to the International Labour Organisation. In the course of my remarks I referred to the traffic from Burma to Thailand. It is also relevant to recognise and highlight the fact that Burma is in serious violation of ILO conventions in relation to labour. Will the Minister reiterate the Government's strong discouragement of companies trading with a regime that breaks those conventions?
Fiona Mactaggart: One of the things that I do in my broader role as Minister with responsibility for charities is spend quite a lot of time talking to companies about their corporate social responsibility policies. I find it inconceivable that a company can be smug about its corporate social responsibility when it is responsible for investing in plant and managing production in places where employees are denied basic human rights. I am unashamed to say that to those with whom I debate issues of corporate social responsibility. I remind them that they damage their reputation. If part of their corporate social responsibility is to make people feel proud of the company that they work for or good about a particular product, people will not feel that if there is child labour or exploitation, if they do not meet basic human rights standards or if their policies abroad are inadequate.
What are we doing in the UK? I will not list the whole range of enforcement activities that we undertake, but it is important to mention the Reflex programme, which has managed to intervene in 38 organised crime groups. Thirty-eight convictions have been secured for related offences, most of them trafficking, including the conviction of a ruthless criminal who was trafficking young girls into prostitution in London.
I congratulate the Metropolitan police and Reflex on their work, which resulted in the principal defendant in that case being sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment. Appropriate punishments, as well as effective enforcement, are critical.
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The hon. Gentleman mentioned Operation Paladin. If a trafficked child reaches the UK, we must, as he pointed out, make sure that the response at the ports is adequate. Operation Paladin was led by the Metropolitan police in conjunction with the immigration service, social services and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It took place between August and November last year and was funded by Reflex. The operation has not found conclusive evidence on trafficking at Heathrow, but significant child protection issues undoubtedly exist. The report made a number of recommendations, which we are examining carefully. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will take steps to respond to those recommendations, but I cannot pre-announce the final decisions.
In the meantime, a child protection officer is already based at Heathrow. The immigration service is developing a proposal to base social work teams at major ports of entry, exactly as the hon. Gentleman demanded. He is right that picking up vulnerable children at the moment of entry is the best way to protect them. We are also looking to roll out a training course to give immigration officers specialist skills for interviewing children, because some ports or flights will inevitably not be covered. We must try to ensure that immigration officers know how to interview children and the signs and symptoms to look for.
I have discussed the emphasis that we have placed on punishment. The Sexual Offences Act 2003, which came into force this year, introduces comprehensive offences, including trafficking offences, and we must ensure that they are enforced as quickly as possible.
On support for victims, the most important message is that the victims are children, not immigration cases. We must focus on the point that child trafficking is a child protection issue. It is the business of those who are responsible for child protection to protect trafficked children, whatever their immigration status. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families is currently engaged in a robust debate on the Children Bill. I do not want to intervene in that debate, although I will make sure that she sees a copy of this debate, because I know that these issues are being discussed.
If we have effective and robust child protection structures, we will have effective structures to protect trafficked children. Sometimes social services query whether such children are their business because of those children's immigration status. They are our business because they are children. The leaders of bodies working in social services know that, but we must help everyone in social services departments to understand that they must, as in any other case, undertake a needs assessment and provide services in the light of its outcome. Services must be tailored to the individual needs of the child, just as they should be for any child in need. That is the Government's commitment, which must happen in practice.
The best way in which to provide support for victims is the same way in which we provide support for victims
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of other kinds of child abuse, because the trafficking of children is child abuse. Our newspapers and media are horrified by child abuse, and they are also horrified by the trafficking of children, but they do not know how serious the problem is and the scale of work that is required to prevent, deter and punish those involved and to protect the victims.
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We are doing quite a bit, but we must do more, and the Government cannot address the situation on their own. We know that non-governmental organisations are important partners. I am certain that—
The motion having been made at Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
- Adjourned at half-past Six o'clock.
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