Examination of Witnesses (Questions 720
- 740)
TUESDAY 9 MAY 2006
DR JOHN
SIMMONDS, MS
DEBBIE ARIYO,
MR NATHAN
GLEW AND
MS OYEWO
EKELEMU
Q720 Mr Benyon: Can I ask all witnesses
why you believe there is a propensity for private fostering arrangements
to come from Africa and, in particular, West Africa? Why is there
such a huge proportion coming from here? Perhaps you can just
inform the Committee about this cultural aspect to it.
Ms Ariyo: Firstly, I am Nigerian
British, I am from a Nigerian background. There are over 160 million
Nigerians. Whether that is true or not we do not know, but that
is what the official figure is. There is a large proportion of
them here in the UK. Some of them are Nigerian British—that
is they have settled here; they were born here or they grew up
in Nigeria and came back here. Some of them are nationalised and
so on and so forth. Some of them are here illegally, but there
is a huge proportion of them who are of Nigerian origin. If you
look at the number of children that are being privately fostered,
we find a large proportion of them are of Nigerian origin. So,
firstly, it could be because of the high number of Nigerians
here anyway that could be the contributing factor in terms of
the number of privately fostered children from West Africa. Secondly,
the issue of children living with extended family members or other
successful people in the community is something that is part and
parcel of the culture in most West African countries, Nigeria
included and of course Ghana, Sierra Leone and other countries.
So it is not actually seen as wrong to give your child to an extended
member of the family to look after in the hope or belief that
the child will be well looked after and the child can go to school,
and so on and so forth. That is one of the reasons why we are
seeing a huge proportion of the children coming from that part
of the world, because it is a cultural thing anyway; there is
nothing wrong with it. The problem that we are finding is that
a huge proportion of the children that are being privately fostered
are being brought in by unscrupulous individuals who are actually
bent on using those children for exploitative purposes. So a parent
back home would not bat an eyelid if somebody from here came and
said to them: "Okay. I live in London, I can look after your
child for you". It would not be a problem. They might have
an ulterior motive but a parent would not know that. That child
could end up being brought here to be exploited in different ways:
domestic servitude or to claim state benefit or for sexual exploitative
reasons.
Mr Benyon: I completely accept what you
say about the exploitative nature of this, and there is lots of
evidence, and we accept it, and anything that we can recommend
that cracks down on that the better. Do you think that we, as
a Committee, are right to question the desire of families in West
Africa to send a child halfway across the world to stay with relatives
or friends who that child may never have met—no doubt to
get a reasonable education? To many people—to me—it
seems an extraordinary thing to do. Should we be questioning that
cultural aspect to this?
Q721 Mr Winnick: All four witnesses.
Ms Ekelemu: I agree with Debbie
to a large extent. I think we, as a society, actually need to
challenge and question such arrangements only because a small
number—I would not say a large number because in my experience
in Southwark we have not really come across a large number—of
children who are in private fostering arrangements who were subject
to significant harm. I would say because we have that minute number
of little pockets of children who have been subjected to private
fostering arrangement and who have been identified to be at risk,
I would say that is one of the most important reasons why we should
challenge this cultural style of parenting, of fostering children.
It is a cultural practice within, just like Debbie said, Africa
and particularly West Africa that children will be looked after
by friends or by successful individuals within the family, and
it has filtered down to the UK. Inasmuch as, for example, in Southwark
we do not really have a major concern, but we have been able to
identify a little number of children who are in private fostering
arrangements but, yet again, who are actually well looked after.
I would say we need to challenge it because there is that little
number who are subjected to harm.
Mr Glew: I can confirm what Ms
Ekelemu was saying, really. We have actually had a project running
since July 2005 where the National Children's Home undertake assessments
for us of private fostering arrangements that come to our attention
and since then they have seen 21 families. Seven of those families
were from Nigeria, seven were from the Caribbean, three were white
families, three were Asian and one was "black other"
(I do not quite know what the "black other" category
would mean in that context). There were 29 children involved in
that and only one of those children ended up being looked after
by Southwark as a result of those assessments. We did think that
she had been involved in being trafficked to the country and being
used for domestic servitude. I know it is a very small sample
because it has not been running for very long but it kind of gives
you a sense of what we are dealing with.
Dr Simmonds: If the question is
about legitimacy, we have heard from the first set of witnesses
that large numbers of people come into this country to study and
to better themselves and we do not know how many of them bring
children along with them. It is legitimate for those people to
do that and if they are accompanied by children then that may
be a legitimate thing to better their prospects by education and
the experience of living in the UK. I think it is a wider social
question about why people migrate to countries which offer better
prospects, but whether it is actually an acceptable thing then
for children to be placed with strangers in risky situations—from
a child's perspective that is an extremely scary thing to do—we
have to make sure that if we accept that basic premise that the
framework that is in place has to centre on the needs and welfare
of children. I think that is where the issue is about whether
the private fostering arrangements as we currently have them,
even with the notification scheme, are adequate in actually doing
that.
Q722 Mr Benyon: A very quick question
for Dr Simmonds: can you tell us why you think that the current
requirements to simply notify private fostering arrangements is
insufficient to protect children, in the light of your written
evidence?
Dr Simmonds: I think some of the
situations that we are discussing are where people would either
not see the advantage of notifying or that they would have reason
not to notify. We are talking about a group of children who are
largely invisible and there are reasons why they are invisible.
So the notification system does depend on the private foster carer
both understanding the reason that they should notify and actually
seeing the advantage to them of doing so. I think, at the moment,
although local authorities do have a responsibility to bring the
notification scheme to public awareness, I am not sure for that
group of people that actually want to avoid the notification scheme
there is a strong enough motivation for them to actually do so.
Q723 Bob Russell: Following on that
line of questioning, Dr Simmonds, I find it strange you say these
children are hidden, bearing in mind they have come into the country
through immigration (and then that will lead on to the co-ordination
or lack of it between different service providers, social services,
health and education). Do you feel that immigration staff sometimes
appear to be unaware of their requirement to report private
fostering arrangements to the relevant local authority when a
child passes through a port without their parent or legal guardian?
Dr Simmonds: Yes, I think immigration
officers both need to be trained but, most particularly, the immigration
service needs to be brought within the duties of Sections 10 and
11 (particularly Section 11) of the Children Act 2004, which places
a duty on a wide range of public authorities to safeguard and
promote the welfare of children. At the moment the immigration
service is actually excluded from that. I think by including them
within that section by actually placing a duty on the immigration
service they would have a responsibility to think about, for those
children in risky circumstances; that they have a responsibility
to notify the local authority in which the child is going to move
into that they are concerned. I think until the immigration service
has that duty then it is going to seem too optional and then dependent
on the particular training and priorities of the officer themselves
as to whether they actually take that safeguarding duty seriously.
Q724 Bob Russell: Have there been
any improvements since the new rule came in in February? We are
already witnessing, are we not, that it has to be highlighted
that a child travelling to the United Kingdom has to have a special
entry clearance?
Dr Simmonds: I think those new
rules are really helpful.
Q725 Bob Russell: It is positive
not negative?
Dr Simmonds: Positive, yes.
Q726 Bob Russell: Is that the experience
of the other witnesses?
Ms Ariyo: We recently had a series
of consultative meetings on child trafficking to feed into the
Home Office proposals for a UK action plan trafficking. We asked
roughly 80 people at the meetings if they had any idea whatsoever
about this new law on private fostering to notify. Nobody has
ever heard of the law on private fostering or the requirement
to notify. People had no idea what we were talking about. It seems
to me that this issue of notification is something that is just
known to professionals, without the knowledge and the awareness
of the different communities who might be required to notify or
be aware of what the law says.
Q727 Bob Russell: As a professional,
are you alarmed at that lack of knowledge, that a relatively recent
piece of guidance regulation is not known?
Ms Ariyo: It is frightening because
if people do not know that they have to notify then it means there
is potentially a high number of children who could be at risk
because they do not know they have to do it.
Q728 Bob Russell: I think the Committee
will take seriously those concluding points. My last question
is to all the witnesses. In your view, is there a link between
private fostering and trafficking or are the two issues separate
from one another?
Ms Ekelemu: In Southwark we have
not found a great link between private fostering and trafficking.
We have identified a very minute number of children as having
travelled unaccompanied and also having been trafficked mainly
for domestic servitude, but again we have not really found that
major link between private fostering and trafficking. Yes, we
found a number of children who have come into the country on false
passports or false documentation whom we believe are being trafficked,
again for domestic servitude, but we have not found that huge
link—again, I am limiting my answer to Southwark—between
private fostering and trafficking.
Dr Simmonds: My answer would be
that the potential is there for a link between private fostering
and trafficking but I think my concern is that where those private
foster carers have reason not to notify the local authority, but
there is a private fostering arrangement because the child is
trafficked or the child has been exploited in some kind of way,
then that child does become invisible. We do not have very clear
figures about that and I think it is on a case-by-case basis that
the evidence probably exists at the moment.
Mr Glew: I want to say I support
that. At an anecdotal level, our experience has been that we tend
to come out and discover the situations we think might be to do
with trafficking through referrals from other routes. We get a
referee to that child because there has been some kind of an incident
or a need identified by some other professional. In terms of that
issue maybe being hidden, whilst professionals like teachers,
for example, may know that they should notify, they may not necessarily
identify a situation of private fostering if they are presented
with a child and a carer who says that they are an aunt or an
uncle but nobody has inquired into or seen any paperwork to confirm
that. There is an acceptance that is the arrangement and we do
sometimes come across those situations where it is private fostering
but it has not been identified as such.
Mr Winnick: I will let you know our timetable.
Q729 Mrs Dean: Could I direct my
questions to Debbie Ariyo. Could you tell us more about the kinds
of cases that you have come across in your work with AFRUCA and
under what kinds of circumstances did children end up being trafficked
into the UK and have you got any information about how they are
brought here? It would also be helpful to know for the purpose
of our inquiry how immigration controls are abused.
Ms Ariyo: In the course of our
work across the country and increasingly in one or two other European
countries, firstly, children are being brought in using other
people's travel documents. One of the things that really concerns
us at AFRUCA, when we are talking about private fostering arrangements
being hidden or not being hidden, is that we have reports of children
being brought in using other children's European passports. If
those children are being brought in it means they are claiming
to be other people's children. For example, if a child has been
brought in using my own child's travel documents and appears to
be my own child it would be very difficult in that sense to identify
that child as a child who has been privately fostered. Secondly,
we have children who are being brought in with their details appended
to other people's passports as their children because there are
no photographs to show who that child could be, so any child in
that sense could be used or could be brought in on that document.
Thirdly, we have cases of children who are using other countries'
passports, children's passports, and that is simply because the
photograph on the passport does not clearly show who the child
is, for example, in instances where the child has aged significantly
over a period of three or four years. This is one of the instances
we have come across where children are being brought illegally
into the country. Does that answer your question?
Q730 Mrs Dean: Yes it does, thank
you very much. We understand that you have recently undertaken
consultation with a number of different communities to discuss
issues around the trafficking of African children into and through
the UK. Could you tell us what were the key messages arising from
these about what communities feel should be done to prevent trafficking
and to protect vulnerable children?
Ms Ariyo: We had a series of consultative
meetings between February and March earlier this year. We had
over 80 different people from different nationalities and African
backgrounds who attended the meetings. The first message that
came across was the need for the African community in the UK itself
to begin to look at the issue of the vulnerability of children
and what the community itself can do to protect vulnerable children,
that is children in dodgy private fostering arrangements. What
people are saying is that yes, indeed the children are being privately
fostered and most of those children are being privately fostered
as separated children and they are very prone to abuse and exploitation.
I want to make a quick response to what my colleagues from Southwark
said, that there is a close link between private fostering and
child trafficking because a lot of the children are being privately
fostered under dodgy situations. There is nobody to monitor their
welfare, there is nobody to dictate to the carer how they can
treat that child. I strongly believe, and this is also coming
from our work, that a lot of the children in those situations
in reality—there is no potential, in reality—are very,
very prone to being exploited, so there is a close link there
with child trafficking. These are some of the key messages that
are coming out. Also there is a need as well for the Government,
not just to enact these laws but to try and communicate to different
people. For example, people are not aware of the notification
requirements on private fostering. How are people supposed to
comply if they are not aware? This is one of the messages coming
out.
Mr Winnick: You have certainly emphasised
what a serious problem this is.
Q731 Gwyn Prosser: Mr Glew, can you
tell us a little more about the Operation Paladin Child? I think
you were involved in that operation yourself along with Mrs Ekelemu?
Mr Glew: It might be more useful
for Mrs Ekelemu to answer that because she did some of the visits
to some of the families involved in Operation Paladin Child.
Ms Ekelemu: I was involved in
undertaking not all but most of the assessments that were part
of the referrals that came from Operation Paladin Child. My colleagues
and I undertook the assessments at the point when the referrals
came. We thought as social care workers that at the point when
we were going in to visit this family the needs or concerns had
not been identified per se. We were being asked by Paladin to
undertake assessments of children who came into the country unaccompanied,
who had non-EU passports, who were not accompanied by either a
parent or a guardian, or whose addresses were known, and we were
being asked to identify them and see what had happened to them
in the community. As social care workers, we thought visiting
these families went against our social worker rules because in
terms of our role we would go and visit families who were in need,
or where concern has been identified, but with regards to Paladin,
needs and concerns were not identified per se and we felt that
went against our social work ethos. On a personal note, I thought
I was doing policing or an immigration officers work on their
behalf, but having said that I do agree with some of the issues
raised in the Paladin Report that if social care staff had not
been used then the children who were identified to be at risk
would not have been identified. Obviously the implication of that
for me would be yes, in as much as I agree that social care staff
should be used, at the same time, I feel that immigration officers
at the port of entry would also require further training in terms
of child protection, and vice versa. Social workers, also, if
we are going to be used to undertake such work in the future,
need to have an awareness around immigration documentation.
For example, when we go on a home visit and I would be asked to
look at documentation on which the child has been brought into
the country, which is the passport, I would need to be educated,
for example, on what exactly I am looking at in this passport.
Paladin was good, I feel personally that it should be extended,
but more needs to be done in regards to Paladin in terms of
training and raising awareness amongst professionals.
Q732 Gwyn Prosser: In terms of what
it revealed, what was the main thing that the operation revealed
for you?
Ms Ekelemu: I think the main thing
it revealed for me is that there is a huge number of unaccompanied
minors travelling into the UK. There were no significant numbers
of children who came in illegitimately; rather most of the children
that came in naturally came in legitimately and most of them were
on holidays or for educational purposes. However, a huge number
of children were travelling unaccompanied particularly from West
Africa and a huge number of female children travelling from Nigeria
between the ages of 12 and 16 to the UK. For me, that is an eye
opener, and the question again is: why is that?
Q733 Gwyn Prosser: How would you
like to see it extended and followed up?
Ms Ekelemu: I would like Paladin
extended, not limited to Heathrow because the pilot was at Heathrow;
I would like to see Paladin extended to the major ports in the
UK. As I said in Paladin, I would like to see a multi-agency team
being part of Paladin, made up of police officers, immigration
officers and social workers where it is possible. I would like
Paladin to be filtered into the community so it is not just limited
to the ports but for the Paladin team, or whoever is part of the
team, to work within the community as well. So not just identifying
the children at the port of entry but having the follow-up within
Paladin.
Q734 Mr Winnick: What happens in
the UK itself once they are here?
Ms Ekelemu: Within the UK itself.
Another thing I would like to suggest is if possible, where children
have been identified before visas are issued or after visas are
issued even then there is scope for a link between immigration
services and immigration services abroad, and consular services
abroad, which identify these children for the Paladin team to
ascertain whether or not these addresses they are going to are
genuine or the individuals they are coming to live with are genuine.
I think there will be scope for filtering out genuine cases and
false cases.
Q735 Mr Winnick: Of course the Victoria
Climbié case is very much in our minds.
Ms Ekelemu: Victoria Climbié
came in on an EU passport and Paladin only looks at children that
come in with non-EU passports, so I believe we do not know the
scope of the problem. I think the problem is huge. If we limit
it to children who are coming in on non-EU passports, again, there
is a scope for children like Victoria to fall through the net.
Q736 Gwyn Prosser: Finally, this
is a very important part of our inquiry, are there any issues
or matters in regards to children and immigration rules which
you want to flag up now which have not been covered in the evidence?
Mr Glew: There is one thing I
would like to say which is not to do with private fostering. I
think a big issue for local authorities and it is the numbers
of families who have reached the ends of their asylum appeals,
and so on.
Q737 Gwyn Prosser: It is a very important
matter but that is slightly outside our remit.
Mr Glew: If I can finish that
point I will keep it very brief. Those who end up being defined
as having no recourse to public funds (and then we have applications
to the local authority under the Children Act to support those
families.) I think there is a potential for children to get lost
in the system where families are not brought to the local authority's
attention under the Children Act or are rejected by local authorities
through that system. They are very vulnerable children and they
have no access to public funding. There is a real safeguarding
issue there. I think what I would like to see is there being a
more robust system around the whole thing to do with deportation
rather than families being left rattling around in the system,
for sometimes, years before they get deported.
Q738 Gwyn Prosser: Are there any
other points?
Dr Simmonds: Can I reiterate the
point that I made earlier about the immigration service being
excluded from section 11 of the Children Act 2004 because I think
in all the issues that have been learned from Operation Paladin
and about the importance of agencies working together, sections
10 and 11 is absolutely critical to placing a duty on the immigration
service in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare
of children and the duty to work with other public bodies in doing
that. I think all those issues about Paladin do need to be taken
forward but unless that duty is placed on the immigration service
under section 11, I think there could be a problem in pushing
that forward.
Q739 Mr Winnick: Presumably much
more coordination through the immigration service and social services
in many cases.
Dr Simmonds: Yes, absolutely,
all the agencies.
Bob Russell: All the agencies.
Q740 Mr Winnick: That might have
saved the life of Victoria Climbié. Would that be the position?
Dr Simmonds: I think the issues
with Victoria Climbié were partly about services that knew
about her that did not properly respond and evaluate the risk
to her. I think that is somewhat different but the lesson that
we still learn is that agencies that come into contact with vulnerable
children need to work together and need to have that duty placed
on them which the new act does but it does exclude the immigration
service.
Ms Ariyo: I think, also, it is
very important to highlight that it is okay to raise awareness
and to train practitioners but a lot of the children are either
being privately fostered and are very open to abuse or they are
specifically trafficked to be exploited within their own communities
and people within the community know who these children are. They
might not feel empowered to report or to make a referral to social
services or to the police for a lot of reasons. For that reason
I think we need to do more to sensitise different communities
to the issue and to try and raise awareness and to put the onus
on different communities to act to safeguard their children.
Mr Winnick: All four of you have given
us plenty to think about when we are drawing up our report. Many
thanks for coming along, it has been very useful indeed.
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