1. Memorandum submitted by
Africans Unite against Child Abuse (AFRUCA)
SUMMARY
AFRUCA—Africans Unite Against Child Abuse
is the UK's premier charity promoting the welfare of African children.
We are also the only charity campaigning against the trafficking
of African children in to the country. AFRUCA has recently been
funded by the Home Office to organise community focus group meetings
for members of the African community in the London area. The issues
raised will feed directly into the ongoing consultation on Proposals
for a UK Action Plan on Human Trafficking. The first of the meetings
was held on Monday 27 February 2006.
In addition, over the past five years, our work with
various agencies, including immigration lawyers, social workers,
police, policy makers, other charities, with young victims and
also in source countries lead us to believe more needs to be done
by the government to protect and safeguard vulnerable migrant
children. In particular, we are of the opinion that the experiences
of migrant children who are trafficked into the UK under various
guises and by various means leave them prone to abuse and exploitation.
1. Experiences of trafficked children
1.1 Over the past year, AFRUCA has worked
directly on about 15 cases involving young victims of trafficking
appealing their failed asylum cases or trafficked children requiring
support and counselling. We have heard first hand accounts of
different victims of trafficking. The generality of their experiences
in the country, despite the peculiarity of their cases, goes to
show the different dimensions of child trafficking and the need
to take urgent action to safeguard vulnerable children.
1.2 The young victims of trafficking we worked
with have been exploited in different ways. These range from domestic
servitude to sexual exploitation or a combination of the above.
A victim of domestic servitude we worked with described her situation
as thus: "I'm a house-girl in the day, a housewife in the
night. When I say no, I get beaten". In a lot of the cases,
the young people are threatened with deportation if they do not
co-operate with their exploiters. In other cases, they are told
their parents back home will be hurt or killed if they do not
co-operate. The fear instilled in them leads to untold mental
and emotional abuse.
1.3 In a number of instances, younger children
have been exploited for state benefit purposes. In a number of
cases, once these young people are past the age of 16 when they
are no longer "benefit-worthy", they are expelled by
the people exploiting them, thereby making them homeless. A lot
of these young people turn to a life of crime and prostitution
as a way of sustaining themselves. There are concerns within the
UK Somali community about the increase in the number of crime
being committed by young men who have had the above experience.
1.4 In addition to these, participants at the
community meeting held on 27 February in West London decried the
prevalence of young Africans working in African grocery stores
and restaurants as helps. Tattered, inadequately fed and looked
after, these children and young people are exploited as servants.
They do not attend schools and are very prone to abuse and harm.
1.5 Furthermore, attention has been drawn to
the prostitution rackets existing in night clubs frequented by
mainly African punters. Here young girls have been observed as
being prostituted, appearing and disappearing with different men
in back rooms in the clubs involved.
1.6 Lastly, we have received reports of cases
involving young Ugandan girls who have been trafficked purposely
for council housing. They are brought in unaccompanied so they
could go into local authority care. They are then impregnated
to enable them become eligible for council flats. The men disappear
and return once the housing problem is solved. It is believed
by concerned members of the community that a sizeable proportion
of the teenage pregnancy cases in London are as a result of this
specific development in child trafficking.
2. Vulnerability
2.1 Children and young people in different
African countries end up victims of trafficking for a number of
reasons. Firstly, coming from poor, indigent homes, they have
been given away by their parents to live with relatives who are
well off, in the hope that they will be looked after, and will
be able to attend school. Equally important, there are testimonies
given by young people who have been given away by their parents
knowingly, with the hope that the young people can earn enough
income to enable them look after the rest of the family. In other
cases, the young people have lost their parents, and so are orphans
with no one to look after them and cater for their needs. They
become vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous members of their
families and other people.
2.2 We have worked with former street children—that
is children who lived on the streets, and who were especially
vulnerable and became easy prey because no one would miss them
if they disappeared. While we have not worked with young people
in this other instance, there are media and NGO reports from source
countries about children in orphanages who are sold by unscrupulous
minders to people who later disappear with those children. It
is not certain if there have been cases like this in the UK.
3. How are the young people brought into the
UK
3.1 From our experience, most young people
are brought into the country accompanied by their trafficker or
his/her agent and delivered to the person who ends up exploiting
them. In a number of instances, they have been brought in using
genuine British passports belonging to other children. There are
cases where children have been brought in on other people's passports
or other false documents. In other cases, children have passports
with fictitious names and an accompanying visa procured for them.
3.2 We believe most of the African children trafficked
into the country are brought in by individuals, rather than by
organised groups although, this is also the case. Most young people
are brought in as part of a group—for example as part of
a family—thereby making it difficult for immigration officials
to suspect what is going on.
3.3 In a number of African countries, there are
instances where orphans have been illegally adopted, and fears
are rising about the true intentions of a number of adopters who
end up taking children out of the country. It is increasingly
difficult to trace these children and it is not impossible that
some of them may be victims of trafficking here in the UK, although
we do not have any confirmed instances of this. However, because
it is becoming an increasing phenomenon across Europe, for example
in Switzerland and Germany, it is doubtful that there are no instances
here in the UK.
3.4 Young people continue to be brought into
the country unaccompanied, with their traffickers knowing full
well they will be looked after by the responsible local authority.
In a number of local authorities across the UK, young people have
been known to disappear from local authority care and in some
cases have been sighted in other cities or other countries in
Europe.
3.5 There are cases of re-trafficking reported
across the country. A girl trafficked by her father from Nigeria
was apprehended at Dover on the way to France disguised as a boy
on a British passport. There are cases of children being passed
from hand to hand between the UK and the Irish Republic which
has a growing African, mainly Nigerian population. It is felt
that the easy transportation links between the UK and mainland
Europe could be facilitating the re-trafficking of children.
4. Immigration controls
4.1 In all the cases we have dealt with
over the years, there are concerned about the ease at which traffickers
are able to procure false travel documents for their victims.
Most people especially within the community who are interested
in this issue have fingered corrupt and unscrupulous civil servants
and immigration officials both in the UK and in different African
countries as being complicit in fuelling the growing child trafficking
market. It is felt that this is an area that needs urgent attention
if the fight against child trafficking was to be won.
4.2 In addition, it is felt that more needs to
be done at the port of entry to safeguard vulnerable children
before they reach the streets where it would be more difficult
to identify and rescue them. It has been suggested that the government
should consider the regular use of DNA testing on children being
brought in to confirm their parentage and relationship with those
accompanying them. It is felt that this would help to safeguard
a lot of children who are being claimed as someone else's.
4.3 Attention has been drawn to the lack of awareness
among airline staff of the risks of child trafficking and how
to identify victims. It is felt that staff on airlines who regularly
fly to African countries be made to undergo training in child
protection to enable them develop the skills necessary to identify
and protect victims.
5. Long-term impact of abuse on victims
5.1 It has to be emphasised that the problem
of trafficking should not be seen as existing in isolation. There
are a lot of long term ramifications for victims as well as for
government social policy. Aside the abuse and exploitation suffered,
victims also have their future stolen by the inability to fully
experience education, which as adults makes it difficult for them
to break the chain of poverty experienced as children. The inability
to trust others and to live a fulfilling adult life due to the
abuse and exploitation suffered can have a devastating impact
on victims. The long-term mental health issues brought about by
post-traumatic stress as a result of their experiences also needs
to be acknowledged.
5.2 A number of key social policy implications
have been highlighted above. The growing crime rate among certain
young people who are victims of trafficking need to be highlighted.
It means that as a measure of combating youth crime, child trafficking
as a contributory factor need to be acknowledged and addressed.
This also goes for the growing problem of teenage pregnancy as
well as the involvement of young people in prostitution.
CONCLUSION
Child trafficking is indeed a growing problem in
the UK. So far efforts to address this phenomenon have been central
and mainstream with no thought given to the role that the African
community itself can play in addressing the issue. Since most
victims are trafficked and exploited by their own people and within
their own communities, it is imperative that efforts to combat
it must involve the affected communities who need to be empowered
to deal with the problem and help safeguard vulnerable young people.
Debbie Ariyo
Executive Director
28 February 2006
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