The Trade in Human Beings: Human Trafficking in the UK - Home Affairs Committee Contents


7  The international dimension

163. So far, we have concentrated in this Report on the responsibilities and actions of UK public bodies in relation to human trafficking, but one of our principal motivations in undertaking this inquiry was our desire to discover the degree of international co-operation in tackling what is, after all, a major transnational crime. We therefore now turn to the international dimension, starting with a brief account of how UK authorities interact with equivalent bodies elsewhere, and moving on to discuss the role of institutions such as Europol and the European Commission, the degree of mutual support among EU Member States, and relations with source and transit countries outside the EU.

UK authorities and their overseas equivalents

164. One of the roles of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and its Scottish equivalent, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, is to act as the main conduit for the transfer of information between UK police forces and those in other countries, including bodies such as Europol and Interpol. SOCA has a network of 110 liaison officers based in 40 countries, and maintains a liaison office at Europol; but the Europol office is not staffed solely by officers from SOCA: officials from the UKBA, HM Revenue & Customs and other key bodies in the fight against organised crime are also based there.[296] Europol told us that its main UK partner in the area of trafficking crime was the UKHTC, followed by both serious crime agencies and the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it often liaised direct with Europol.[297] The UKHTC is meanwhile also forging direct links by signing agreements with partner organisations, such as the August 2008 agreement with the US Center for Trafficking, and working with international NGOs, such as its joint bid with the International Organisation for Migration for EU funding to promote standardised collection and sharing of human trafficking data among Member States.[298]

165. Other organisations making use of their international contacts to try to tackle trafficking include the UKBA, HM Revenue & Customs (which is working within a programme promoted by the G6 to build a network of revenue investigators across national boundaries in order to identify and more effectively confiscate the proceeds of crime), and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which is working directly with source countries and with the International Labour Organisation to raise awareness of forced labour.[299]

Role of European Union institutions

European Commission

166. The role of the European Commission in relation to human trafficking is quite limited; the relevant Directorate General, which is itself small, has only two full-time staff working on human trafficking.[300] Action against human trafficking was built into the terms of reference of the European Union by the Maastricht Treaty. The Tampere European Council in October 1999, which focused on increasing co-operation in law enforcement, called for action against human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. This has resulted in a number of legislative acts,[301] and the adoption in December 2005 (during the UK Presidency of the EU) of an Action Plan setting out best practices, standards and recommended mechanisms. The European Commission holds conferences and workshops on the issue (for example, the EU Anti-Trafficking Day held on 18 October 2007, which focused on two Commission initiatives—the production of "recommendations" for Member States on national mechanisms for victim identification and assistance and on indicators to monitor and evaluate national anti-trafficking policies).[302] It set up an experts' group on trafficking in human beings to consider what further action it might take, which reported back to the Commission in December 2004; and it finances projects, such as those aimed at spreading awareness of trafficking, improving data collection or helping applicant states with capacity building.[303]

167. We were told that the Directorates General concerned with External Relations were also involved, in so far as the EU's regional strategies with neighbouring countries such as Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine explicitly encompassed the need for close co-operation in dealing with human trafficking into the EU from and through those countries. Similarly, trafficking was being discussed by the EU-Philippines Migration Committee, EU-Egypt Justice Assessment Committee and with South Asia, South Africa and the African Union.[304]

168. Successive EU presidencies have prioritised different aspects of the 2005 Action Plan. The Czech Presidency, in the first half of 2009, stated that combating human trafficking would be one of its priorities:

In the field of organised crime, one of the fundamental issues for the Czech Presidency is trafficking in human beings. The Presidency shall follow-up on the activities of the Member States and the Commission in preparing mechanisms for data collection and analysis of current situation in the field of trafficking in human beings. The Czech Republic will also focus on discussing the trends in prevention of trafficking in human beings and in programmes for help to victims of this crime. Czech Republic will support establishing and activities of internal coordination mechanisms and their cooperation at the European level.

We therefore visited Prague in March 2009 to discuss with Ministers and officials what action they intended to take on this problem. We were told about two conferences, the first (in March) being a conference of experts called 'Joint Analyses, Joint Action', and the second (in June 2009) being an international conference of the European Crime Prevention Network (EUCP) with the focus on forced prostitution. However, we found that the Czech Government were, like us and the UK Government, struggling with the lack of clear, comparable data on the scale and incidence of this crime, and were concerned about an absence of co-ordination at European level, made all the more pressing by the fact that—as we note later—not all Member States are taking the problem of trafficking seriously.

Europol

169. According to the Home Office, Europol "provides an intelligence structure for EU-wide analysis, as well as analytical support and coordination for joint operations between EU Member States." It does this through the Europol Information System, which allows Member States to search on a database for matches of names, vehicles, etc with information on criminal activity provided by other Member States, and through its Analytical Work Files, which work on the basis of intelligence contributed by Member States but to which Europol has added value by providing both strategic and operational analysis. Europol's Phoenix database is the Analytical Work File dedicated to the subject of Human Trafficking (it has a different database on people smuggling). The Home Office told us that the UK was a member of both work files and is using them to work with other Member States on specific operations and projects.[305]

170. Europol, the Home Office and our police witnesses also emphasised the value of the presence at Europol HQ of liaison offices consisting of police officers and officials of other relevant organisations from a number of Member States. These officers not only helped the Europol human trafficking section (seven people, including two experts in child sexual exploitation) but also liaised with their colleagues from the other countries represented.[306]


In March 2007, Europol was brief by the Romania Police that 1107 Roma children had been trafficked from Romania to other EU states, including the UK. As a result of the UK's search against the data supplied by Romania, it became apparent that 200 of the 'Europa children' had come to the attention of 33 different police agencies across the UK. All of these children were trafficked to the UK for the specific purpose of being exploited through the commission of street crime offences and with an ancillary purpose of defrauding the UK social security system. Many were trafficked using genuine travel documents, as well as counterfeit or forged documents. Many of their parents or legal guardians were complicit in their trafficking as they expect a return on the profits made, with the particular trafficking group involved expecting to earn up to €24 million per year from these 200 children. It is suspected that most, if not all, of this money is sent back to Romania.

171. We asked the Director of Europol whether that organisation was able to give a clearer view of the numbers of trafficking victims than others had been able to do. He said that Europol was still struggling to persuade Member States to use the same definition of human trafficking—that set out in the Palermo Protocol—to enable comparison of statistics. Those who came in contact with Europol understood the definitions and knew what was required, but this understanding needed to spread to all competent authorities within the Member States. Europol was 'training the trainers', a time consuming process—but the Director thought he was already seeing results.[307]

172. The Director was clearly frustrated by the unwillingness of some Member States to provide Europol with relevant information, or to take action on its threat assessment reports. He pointed out that, though Europol reported to the European Commission, the Commission had neither the powers nor the resources to act upon them, and it was for Member States to allocate police and judicial resources to tackling the problem.[308] However, he was able to list a number of operations in which Europol had been involved, providing information and helping with co-ordination. These included trafficking for both sexual and labour exploitation, of adults of both sexes and children. The UK was involved in two of the seven operations (one involving the trafficking of women from Romania to Spain and the UK for sexual exploitation, the other involving the trafficking of men to the UK, Norway, Sweden and Denmark from the Czech Republic to repair roads). Other Member States active in such operations were Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland.[309] The Director also noted that Europol had supported the UK and Romania in setting up a Joint Investigation Team, during the course of which it had worked closely with the Metropolitan Police.[310]

173. We are disappointed that not all Member States are co-operating as fully with Europol as they could. We urge our fellow Parliamentarians in other countries to put pressure on their governments and law enforcement bodies to provide Europol and, through Europol, other countries with full and timely information, which will increase the likelihood of successful operations against human traffickers. In addition to the benefit of reciprocation, nationally-based operations tend to catch only the last link in the chain, who are often small-time criminals, and not the gang leaders.

Co-operation within the EU

174. The European Commission, like Europol, thought it was necessary to improve international co-operation in the investigation and prosecution of human trafficking. Commission officials pointed out: "If we carry out an investigation at national level, even a successful investigation, we can catch just the final exploiters"—to capture the network requires international co-operation within and beyond the EU. However, in most cases investigations and prosecutions are still nationally based and very effective methods like joint investigation teams are rarely used: the Commission did not know why this was.[311] The Poppy Project urged the signature of more bilateral and multi-lateral agreements between law enforcement agencies, such as those the UK already had with the USA, Canada, Ireland, Nigeria, Poland, the Netherlands and France.[312] The Home Office noted the operational benefits arising from the G20 initiative on human trafficking, explaining that SOCA had responded to a request from the Netherlands for mutual legal assistance in an investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women for sexual exploitation. The Irish authorities were also involved in this case.[313] The Home Office added that the early indications from this initiative suggested that "multilateral projects on a sub-regional level such as this are an effective mechanism for achieving practical operational co-ordination."[314]

175. The European Commission considered that all Member States took human trafficking seriously, citing in support the fact that all had adopted legislation in this area—though officials admitted there was still a gap between the legislation and results on the ground.[315] As with the UK, other Member States found it difficult to prosecute people for trafficking because of the difficulty in gathering evidence, but the European Commission conceded that, even if one took into account charging traffickers with lesser offences, "the figures concerning criminal proceedings are not high enough."[316] The European Commission said that, judging by the number of criminal prosecutions but not in order of excellence, the most effective Member States in this area were Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, the UK, Italy and Portugal.[317] Europol produced a similar list: Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy, Romania and the UK.[318] The specialist human trafficking unit of the Metropolitan Police said it had worked well with Romania, Hungary and Lithuania.[319] The Poppy Project attributed the decrease in the number of Lithuanian women referred to it as a sign of the effectiveness of the co-operation between police forces in the UK and Lithuania.[320]

176. The European Commission also noted that the Member States which showed best practice in caring for victims also experienced higher numbers of criminal prosecutions of traffickers, which officials suggested was cause and effect.[321]

177. When asked what needed to be done to bring the laggards up to the same standards as the best, and to improve efforts to tackle trafficking across the board, the European Commission said there had to be:

  • a substantial improvement in data collection so that law enforcement agencies could keep up with the changing trends in trafficking;
  • better analysis of the effectiveness of anti-trafficking policy—the Commission suggested that each Member State should appoint a National Rapporteur or equivalent to collect information on investigations, prosecutions and convictions, and data on the age and personal details of offenders; and
  • the adoption of a referral mechanism to assist in the early identification of victims.[322]

178. Not all EU Member States have taken practical measures to combat trafficking. Simple adoption of good legislation, without any significant attempt to enforce it, is not enough. Case studies show, among other things, that even those countries that believe they do not have a problem with trafficking may well be on a trafficking route. More likely, given the suspected scale of trafficking into the EU, there is a problem and the national authorities have not yet recognised it. Like the drugs trade, human trafficking is archetypally a transnational crime, and a clear example of where solidarity among Member States would reap considerable benefits to all.

Relations with source and transit countries

179. Relations with source and transit countries are key to stemming the trade in human beings. Source countries need to be encouraged to spread information about the risks of trafficking to potential victim groups and to tackle the perpetrators, some of whom are their own nationals.[323] Source countries must also be helped to provide appropriate support for returned victims. Transit countries must be persuaded not to ignore the trade on the grounds that it is 'someone else's problem'. Both source and transit countries may have to deal with corruption and sometimes overt collusion with criminals by officials. And the picture is complicated by the fact that many countries—including the UK—are source, transit and destination countries.

180. We were told that the degree of co-operation between source and transit countries varied widely. In general, there appears to be a very good relationship with new EU members such as Romania and Bulgaria and also with countries bordering the EU such as Ukraine. Bucharest hosts a regional centre for liaison officers from all South East European and some other European police forces to help with information sharing and co-ordination of operations. Romania has sent police officers to both Austria and the UK to form Joint Investigation Teams to address specifically the problem of child trafficking from Romania.[324] The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has recently agreed arrangements with the Bulgarian Chief Labour Inspectorate to monitor and control companies supplying agricultural workers to the UK.[325] Misha Glenny, the investigative journalist, praised the efforts made by the British Embassies in Romania and Bulgaria to establish links between British and local police forces, and the way in which the UK Government had helped in training civil servants as well as the police. He thought the work done by the UK and others in South East Europe was showing positive signs, including in Serbia, which was running an information campaign to warn the public about human trafficking. He suggested that the model of co-operation between UK and Spanish authorities in tackling organised crime in the narcotics trade could usefully be applied more widely.[326] The UKHTC has taken a lead in respect of Romania and Bulgaria, working with the International Organisation for Migration and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to run campaigns in both countries to raise awareness of all forms of trafficking. Coupled with this, the International Organisation for Migration established a telephone advice line in Bulgaria and Romania. The campaign ran for three months at the beginning of 2007. The helplines received just over 200 calls, most simply seeking information on preventing human trafficking, but nine calls in Bulgaria and twelve in Romania related to actual cases of trafficking.[327]

181. Ukraine was frequently cited to us as a country making great efforts to tackle the scourge of trafficking. It acts as both a source and a transit country. We visited Ukraine as part of our inquiry and we were favourably impressed with the commitment of the authorities, their eagerness to co-operate with the UK and other EU Member States, and the key role played by well-established NGOs in raising awareness, identifying and assisting victims. Some examples of successes are already coming to light: a group of Ukrainian women trafficked to the Czech Republic had beforehand been given information about what migrants should do if they found themselves in a difficult situation, and had been provided with the telephone numbers of organisations that could help. They used this information to alert the Czech authorities and were quickly rescued.[328] The NGOs we met in Prague implied this was not an isolated case. This success is attributable to the strong co-operation between the Ukrainian and Czech public authorities, the hard work by NGOs in awareness-raising in both countries, and the fact that the route for sex trafficking between Ukraine and the Czech Republic is well-established so that potential victims can be given specific information—phone numbers and addresses of those who could help them. Europol also said it found it easy to obtain and exchange relevant information with Ukraine and to promote close relations between Ukrainian and Member State law enforcement agencies.[329] The Metropolitan Police confirmed this, but noted that, while Ukraine and Russia co-operated in specific cases, they were not yet working with other police forces more generally to tackle the organised crime gangs based in their countries.[330]

182. Moldova was another source country perceived to be co-operating in the attempts to stop the trade in human beings. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has worked with the Moldovan authorities on awareness-raising about trafficking for forced labour. The Director of Europol visited Moldova in 2008 to meet officials setting up a government-funded institution whose purpose was to spread information among children and parents about the dangers of trafficking—and especially about fraudulent offers of jobs as au pairs or in restaurants in Western Europe. He noted the strong support by NGOs in Moldova for this work. Misha Glenny sounded a note of caution, however, saying that Moldova's ability to co-operate was limited by its extreme poverty and high levels of corruption.[331] We also heard conflicting reports of the willingness of authorities in Russia and Lithuania to take action, while Turkey was commended.[332]

183. The country which almost all our witnesses mentioned as posing problems was Nigeria. The exception to this view was the Metropolitan Police's human trafficking unit: it reported that it was working with the Nigerian authorities to discover how victims were recruited and the routes taken by traffickers to Europe.[333] Other witnesses made a number of specific allegations that went beyond simple reluctance to take the problem seriously or to co-operate with others. Anti-Slavery International said that Nigeria was not willing to put basic anti-trafficking provisions in place.[334] It also noted that because Nigeria does not issue replacement passports through its embassies abroad, returned victims often have to travel home on temporary travel documents, which identifies them as victims and leads to harassment, ostracism, detention and sometimes immediate re-trafficking. Anti-Slavery International hinted that airport workers in Nigeria might be linked to trafficking gangs, as victims were found and re-trafficked so swiftly.[335] The Poppy Project said their Nigerian clients had indicated that traffickers found it easy to obtain visas and other travel documents from the British High Commission—there was no need to forge them.[336] Europol noted that as yet it had been unable to make a strategic co-operation agreement with Nigeria, with the result that it did not obtain any intelligence direct from that country: it had to rely on Member States to pass on any information they received from Nigeria.[337]

184. Other countries named to us as unable or unwilling to join in the battle against trafficking were Albania (where corruption and the extent to which criminal gangs have penetrated all sectors of society, including law enforcement agencies, thwart efforts to counter trafficking) and Vietnam (where the authorities often refused to accept that a trafficking victim without papers was a national of the country, thus leaving him or her in effect stateless).[338]

185. CEOP told us that it had been researching how and why children from South-East Asia, South Africa and parts of Europe become victims of trafficking. It had already established good relationships with a number of countries and was hoping to build on the very cost-effective approach already used in relation to sex offenders and child internet pornography, the Global Virtual Task Force, to deal with child trafficking.[339] The Task Force was able to give a round-the-clock response to questions linked to operational requirements. Using this facility and the relations CEOP had already established with NGOs active in source countries such as Cambodia, CEOP hoped to be able to run operations to stop the trafficking of children from these area.[340]

186. Where countries are willing to co-operate, there is clearly a readiness on the part of government agencies and NGOs both in the UK and elsewhere in Europe to help run information campaigns, advise and train local police forces and other public officials, and help by information sharing and with joint operations. Where there is no intention by source and transit countries to co-operate, diplomatic pressure is an option, not least pressure from neighbouring countries which may be suffering as transit routes and from an overspill of criminality. It is also not always necessary to have the whole-hearted support of the government: there may be more benefit from working through NGOs, as Europol hinted to us. There also may be more that could be done in the way of pooling information for general use, through Europol and Interpol, by destination countries that have good relations with the less co-operative source countries.

187. All these solutions require the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development to keep the effort to combat human trafficking as one of their priorities. In general, our witnesses were complimentary about the work of these departments in specific countries. There appears to be scope for extending this work—such as that done in South-East Europe—to more countries.

188. The UK Presidency of the EU made a priority of human trafficking, and we are pleased that the current holders of the Presidency, the Czech Republic have done so, too. We recommend the UK Government to take the lead in ensuring that at least once a year the source, transit and destination countries meet together to discuss practical measures to improve the co-ordination of efforts against trafficking, which should supplement the best practice conferences for experts currently held by the EU. These could perhaps be held under the aegis of an organisation not connected to a particular country, such as the International Organisation for Migration. We recommend that an early item on the agenda for such a meeting should be how countries could co-operate more closely with Europol.


296   Ev 156, para 4.2 (Poppy Project) and Q 322 (Europol) This office is said to be the largest of any Member State. It consists of seven liaison officers and two support staff from SOCA, plus representatives of the other agencies (Ev 198, para 57: Home Office) Back

297   Qq 322 (Europol) and 435 (Metropolitan Police) Back

298   Qq 226 and 257 Back

299   Qq 435 (Metropolitan Police) and 243 (UKHTC) and Ev 216, paras 6.8-6.9 (Gangmasters Licensing Authority) Back

300   Q 336 (European Commission) Back

301   Relevant EU legislation includes:

- a Framework Decision on combating trafficking in human beings (adopted on 19 July 2002, with a deadline for implementation of 1 August 2004);

- a further Framework Decision on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography (adopted on 22 December 2003); and

- a Directive on the residence permit issued to third-country nationals who are victims of trafficking in human beings or who have been the subject of an action to facilitate illegal immigration, who cooperate with the competent authorities (adopted on 29 April 2004). Back

302   The Brussels Declaration, which came out of a 2002 conference initiated by the Commission but organised by the International Organisation for Migration, forms the main basis of the Commission's work in this area. Back

303   Q 334 (European Commission) The EU helped to fund information campaigns, implemented by the International Organisation of Migration, for Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Bulgaria. Their aim was to raise awareness about the dangers of trafficking in human beings, to assist potential victims and to support relevant authorities in the countries to increase their institutional capacity to deal with the trafficking problems. Back

304   Q 350 Back

305   Ev 198-199, paras 57-59 See also Qq 315 and 318 (Europol) and 549 (Minister) Back

306   Qq 315 and 316 (Europol) and Ev 198, para 57 (Home Office) Back

307   Q 326 Back

308   Q 333 Back

309   Q 317 Back

310   IbidBack

311   Qq 352 and 354, see the comment by STOP THE TRAFFIK that most international co-operation was in the form of conferences and protocols, not action: Ev 252, para 11 Back

312   Ev 156, paras 4.1-4.2 Back

313   Ev 198, para 51 Back

314   Ev 198, para 52 Back

315   Qq 344-345 Back

316   Q 346 Back

317   Qq 347-348 Back

318   Q 321 Back

319   Q 440 Back

320   Ev 259, para 6.1 Back

321   Q 349 Back

322   Q 363 Back

323   The Poppy Project told us that most women were trafficked by criminals of their own nationality. Back

324   Ev 150, paras 2.1-2.4 (Anti-Slavery International) and Qq 440-441 (Metropolitan Police) Back

325   Ev 213, para 12 Back

326   Qq 275, 278, 280-281 Back

327   Q 248 and Ev 230-231 (UKHTC) Back

328   Qq 44 and 48 (Anti-Slavery International) Back

329   Qq 320-321 (Europol) Back

330   Qq 440-441 Back

331   Q 144-145 and 148-149 (Gangmasters Licensing Authority), 320 and 330 (Europol) and 275 (Mr Glenny) Back

332   Russia: Qq 278 (Mr Glenny); Lithuania: Ev 150, paras 2.1-2.4 (Anti-Slavery International) ,Qq 440-441 (Metropolitan Police) and 75 (Poppy Project); Turkey: Q 321 (Europol) Back

333   Qq 440-441 Back

334   Q 46 Back

335   Ev 150, paras 2.5-2.7 Back

336   Qq 77-78 Back

337   Q 320 Back

338   Albania: Qq 75 and 77 (Poppy Project); Vietnam: Ev 150, para 2.8 (Anti-Slavery International) Back

339   This Task Force is a joint effort by CEOP, the Department for Homeland Security and the Immigration and Crime Enforcement Department in the USA, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Australian Federal Police, the Italian National Communications and Postal Police and Interpol (through which the Task Force has access to information from another 187 countries). Back

340   Q 373 Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2009
Prepared 15 May 2009