Memorandum submitted by Unicef
INTRODUCTION
1. UNICEF is the leading children's organisation,
reaching children in more than 150 less-developed countries around
the world. We work with local communities and governments to make
a lasting difference to children's lives. UNICEF UK is one of
36 UNICEF National Committees based in industrialised countries.
UNICEF National Committees raise funds for UNICEF's worldwide
emergency and development work. UNICEF UK also advocates for lasting
change for children. For example UNICEF UK's Public Affairs Team
works to change government policies and practices that are detrimental
to children's rights in the UK and internationally. UNICEF believes
that every child should a safe environment in which to grow up.
UNICEF upholds the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
and works to hold the international community responsible for
their promises to children.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2. With regard to children affected by trafficking,
there is a dramatic absence of harmonised and systematic data
collection, analyses and dissemination—at the international,
regional and UK level.
3. In order to ensure the full protection
of children's rights, all relevant treaties must be ratified and
effectively implemented. The UK needs to:
— Transpose the CRC into domestic law
— Lift its general reservation on immigration
and nationality on the CRC
— Ratify the Optional protocol to the
CRC
— Ratify the 2005 Council of Europe
convention but in the same time go beyond the minimum standards
of protection set out in this instrument.
— Sign the Council of Europe Convention
on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and
Sexual Abuse (CETS No. 201)
4. On an international level, the UK should
continue to be active within the EU and encourage the European
Commission to develop a harmonised system of data collection,
including a consistent legal definition of trafficking. On a bilateral
level, the UK should not just focus on law enforcement cooperation
but also include provisions for victim assistance.
THE SCALE
AND TYPE
OF ACTIVITY
5. According to the latest estimates in
for 2002, some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every
year. Trafficking in children occurs in virtually all countries
in Europe, even if there are significant differences across sub-regions
and countries in perceptions of the phenomenon and in the quantity
and quality of information available. While there is a great deal
of data on trafficking in human beings in South-Eastern Europe
and Commonwealth of Independent States, there is far less documentation
available in the European Union and other Western European countries,
including the UK. It is extremely difficult to quantify how many
children are affected in the UK, given the lack of reliable data-collection
system.
6. Whereas there is no hard data on the
number of child victims being trafficked within or into European
countries, research and reports from agencies working in various
countries indicate that trafficking is taking many different forms.
Accumulated knowledge from field work in South Eastern Europe
shows that child victims generally fall into two categories:
— Adolescent girls between 15 and 17
years of age for sexual exploitation
— Children under 13 year of age for
forced labour, begging and, exceptionally, for the sale of organs.
7. Trafficking is a dynamic process—routes
and "supply" and "demand" flow change all
the time. What we know, however, is that many of the victims who
are being returned to their countries of origin have similar vulnerability
profiles:
— Children who grew up in institutions
— Children from families where domestic
violence or abuse was taking place
— Children who come from poor, disadvantaged
and often dysfunctional families.
8. Collection of sufficient and reliable
data on children, disaggregated to enable identification of discrimination,
is an essential part of tackling the child trafficking. It is
vital not only to establish effective system for data collection,
but to ensure that the data collected are evaluated and used to
assess progress in implementation, to identify problems and to
inform all policy development for children.
9. Annual publications of comprehensive
report on the state of child trafficking should be introduced.
Publication and wide dissemination of and debate on such report,
including in the parliament, can provide a focus for broad public
engagement in implementation.
THE TREATMENT
OF TRAFFICKED
CHILDREN
10. International legal standards on trafficking
in human beings complement one another. In order to ensure the
full protection of children's rights, all relevant treaties must
be ratified and effectively implemented. The CRC is the most comprehensive
legal instrument for the protection of children's rights and has
long been in force in all European countries. Article 35 specifically
addresses child trafficking and affirms that "States parties
shall take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral
measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in
children for any purpose or in any form".
11. The CRC provides a comprehensive framework
for the protection of the rights of all children and calls for
a multidisciplinary approach to child protection issues. It acknowledges
children as actors and asserts children's agency by reaffirming
their right to be consulted on matters that affect them, to express
their opinions freely and to seek, receive and impart information.
The Optional Protocol to the CRC on the sale
of children, child prostitution and child pornography supplements
the Convention. As of September 2007, the protocol had been ratified
by 37 European countries, but not the UK.
12. In addition to important international
legal standards, a strong regional and sub-regional framework
exists to address trafficking. Amongst the former the most notable
one is the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against
Trafficking in Human Beings. It is important that the UK ratifies
it as early as possible, but also to go beyond the minimum standards
of care set out in the convention.
13. On 25 October 2007 the Council of Europe
Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation
and Sexual Abuse (CETS No. 201) was signed by 23 Member States
in Lanzarote. Alas, the UK was not represented at the conference
and did not sign. This Convention is of particular importance
to protect and support victims of child trafficking. It is the
first international treaty to criminalise sexual abuse, introducing
preventive measures include the screening, recruitment and training
of people working in contact with children, making children are
aware of the risks and teaching them to protect themselves, as
well as monitoring measure for offenders and potential offenders.
The convention also establishes programmes to support victims,
and sets up help lines for children
14. Initiatives for the prevention of child
trafficking need to ensure the protection of the child from all
forms of exploitation and abuse, not just sexual exploitation,
as has been the case so far in the UK.
15. The UK ratified the CRC in 1991 but
has never transposed it into domestic law. Upon ratification the
government entered a reservation to the CRC concerning immigration
and nationality. The CRC is ratified by 193 countries and 3 of
them have entered declarations relating to the treatment of non-nationals
(Indonesia, Mauritius and Thailand) but only the UK and Singapore
have entered a general reservation to the application of the CRC
to children who are subject to immigration control.
16. The Home Office points out that "nothing
in the Reservation prevents the Department from giving effect
to the rights set out in the CRC."i In the same report a
letter from the Home Office Minister, Lord Filkin, was quoted,
which was a response to comments in one of JCHR's reports on the
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, saying that:
"The CRC is not binding on the UK in
so far as a matter falls within the reservation, and there is
therefore no requirement to make the best interests of the child
a primary consideration or to adhere to any other principles set
out in it."ii
17. UNICEF UK believes that not only is
the Reservation incompatible with the CRC, but also it manifests
itself in a number of practical ways and prevents implementation
of an effective and rights-based approach to tackling child trafficking.
Key features that should be part of all future anti-trafficking
measures are:
— Ratification of key international
instruments
— Effective implementation of international
standards
— National child protection systems
— Adopting a multisectoral approach
— Collaborating within and across countries
— Including prevention measures and
strategies
— Creating a uniform system for identifying
children who have been abused or exploited
— Raising awareness about child trafficking
— Providing long-term support to children
who have been trafficked
— Data collection, analyses and dissemination
— Monitoring and evaluating programmes
— Involving children in policies and
measures to address trafficking
CO-OPERATION
WITHIN THE
EU
18. The EU has been promoting cooperation
measures for the prevention of trafficking in human beings, and
the UK has been very active in this regard, which should be congratulated.
In October 2005 the European Commission presented its communication
and proposed action plan that includes a focus on children. Two
months later, the EU adopted Plan on Best Practices, Standards
and Procedures for Combating and Preventing Trafficking in Human
Beings.
19. However, the lack of consistent legal
definition of child trafficking shared by all European countries
is a considerable obstacle to effectively addressing the phenomenon.
Not only does this pose challenges for international cooperation
between countries, it also has major implications for the identification
of child victims. Trafficking cases are still not always recognised
as such, and even when they are brought to court, they may be
tried under other, related legislation, such as laws on sexual
exploitation and abuse, migration and asylum, or under labour
legislation. When trafficking cases are not tried under the appropriate
forms of legislation, these cases are not reflected in criminal
statistics on trafficking, and victims risk being denied the legal
protection and assistance to which they are entitled under relevant
international standards.
20. Far too often trafficking victims, both
children and adults, are treated as illegal migrants or as individuals
who are criminally complicit in their own exploitation. A recent
UNICEF study revealed that in more than half of the European countries,
trafficked children are not yet sufficiently protected by law
from criminal prosecution for offences committed while still in
exploitative situations.
Relations with transit and source countries
21. An UNICEF analyses of the flows and
patterns of cross-border trafficking indicates that European countries
are important destination countries in the trafficking chain,
but are also places of origin and transit. There is no clear-cut
distinction between European countries of origin and destination.
The study found that two-thirds of countries are countries of
origin, and more than three-quarters are countries of destination.
In more than half of the countries, trafficking routes lead in
both directions—they lead both into and out of the country.
Internal trafficking is reported to occur in half of all countries
in Europe, including in the UK. As countries of origin, transit
and destination, the UK and other European countries have multiple
responsibilities to prevent trafficking, to identify affected
and at-risk populations, and to provide them with assistance and
protection.
22. In anti-trafficking policy development,
some sub-regional cooperation agreements have been of particular
relevance, eg the Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in
Human Beings for South Eastern Europe (2000-2004), but there are
also a number of bilateral agreements. Very few bilateral agreements,
however, include provisions for victim assistance and prevention.
Instead, bilateral cooperation in Europe tends to focus on law
enforcement, mutual legal assistance and the return of identified
victims of trafficking to their country of origin. A notable exception
and welcome development is an agreement of cooperation for the
protection and assistance of child victims of trafficking, signed
by Albania and Greece in 2006.
6 February 2008
References
i Joint Committee on Human Rights, Nationality,
Immigration and Asylum Bill, Seventeenth Report of Session 2001-02,
HL 132-HC 961, Appendices to the Report, No. 1, Memorandum from
the Home Office, paragraph 28.
ii Joint Committee on Human Rights, The
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Tenth report of Session
2002-03, HL 117-HC 81, p37-38
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