Memorandum submitted by the Local Government
Association
The Local Government Association (LGA) promotes
better local government. It works with and for member authorities
to realise a shared vision of local government that enables local
people to shape a distinctive and better future for their locality
and its communities. The LGA aims to put councils at the heart
of the drive to improve public services and to work with government
to ensure that the policy, legislative and financial context in
which they operate, supports that objective.
It is estimated that globally each year around
1.2 million children are victims of human trafficking, although
the secretive nature of child trafficking makes it difficult to
place accurate figures against the scale of the problem. Data
that is available is based on evidence gathered about those children
who are known to the authorities (usually Unaccompanied Asylum
Seeking Children, some of whom will have been the victims of trafficking)
and do not include those who remain hidden from view. Sadly, the
research is therefore indicative rather than conclusive.
In the UK, rising awareness of the issue is
driving up the intelligence and expertise among those agencies
tasked with stopping this type of exploitation and abuse of children
and caring for them once rescued. However, there remains much
progress to be made.
There is no single explanation for how and why
children might be abused and exploited; statistics demonstrate
that both the country from which children are taken and the reason
for being brought to the UK vary widely. The tell-tale signs of
a trafficked child in need of safeguarding protection will not
necessarily match those of other children in need of safeguarding;
there will in the majority of instances be a concerted effort
to conceal any and all signs that the child is being exploited.
The Safeguarding Children who may have been Trafficked Guidance
produced last year is clear on this matter and presents a model
of high quality multi-agency approaches to supporting children.
The Guidance also acknowledges the challenging nature of detecting
trafficking.
Each LA should, through its Local Safeguarding
Children Board (LSCB), put in place policies and protocols that
recognise that where child trafficking is a concern, situations
will often appear different to other abusive relationships between
children and adults and practitioners should be open to a wide
range of possibilities and signs of exploitation when looking
into a situation where trafficking is suspected; different combinations
of factors come into play in different situations.
The legislative framework and powers exist locally
to support local authorities and their partners on LSCBs to take
the necessary steps to safeguard children who have been trafficked
once those children have been identified and removed from a position
of exploitation. However, there remains some learning to do around
identifying those at risk.
Given the highly secretive nature of trafficking,
there are significant challenges to ensuring that policies and
protocols pick up the varying signs of, and required responses
to child trafficking. In areas where the LSCB feels that policies
and protocols specific to safeguarding trafficked children are
necessary, then it is right that those are put in place and agreed
by all relevant agencies. But, effective policies and protocols
will stand or fall on the effectiveness of our collective understanding
of the signs of a child having been trafficked and in that respect
Government has a role in enabling the sharing of locally developed
intelligence and changing patterns trafficking behaviour.
The final stage of human trafficking is played
out at the local level and it is therefore at this level that
a multi-agency response to victims of trafficking can more easily
be provided. Any new national anti-trafficking programmes and
strategies, such as the current Code of Practice for Keeping Children
Safe from the BIA, should be drawn up and then implemented in
close co-operation with local agencies.
Our concern is that there is no exhaustive list
of signs of trafficking. The risk factors that have been identified
in some cases they may not all be applicable in others and there
may well be others, especially given that children are trafficked
for a variety of different purposes. We must all, including Government,
be sure to avoid a muddle of general abuse signs and symptoms
and more specific exploitation signs and symptoms of trafficking.
There is a need for greater clarity about how
many children enter the UK, for example, through what routes,
to differentiate between children who are smuggled in with no
ulterior motives and those who are trafficked in with the intention
of exploitation. The Home Office need to be in a position to track
children who are returned to ensure they do not re-enter the trafficked
cycle once again, either within the UK or elsewhere: Home Office
sources of information and intelligence need to be improved in
order to identify children should they try to re-enter the UK.
Given the planned move by the Home Office to
set up a number of "specialist authorities" providing
support to UASC, care must be taken not to loose current professional
expertise and knowledge around issues like trafficking and missing
children. All LSCBs will need to build expertise around this so
they can make links to the new specialist authorities.
All children being cared for by a local authority
should be entitled to equal treatment, and councils are committed
to offering consistent standards of support and care for all children
in their care, whether trafficked or not. This equality must extend
to arrangements around transitions. Government policy and funding
arrangements need to be similarly consistent. At the present time
children under the age of eighteen, who are victims of trafficking,
are safeguarded under Children's legislation. Many adult victims
have no recourse to public funds, due to their immigration status,
and there is a lack of specific legislation to protect them. The
financial burden of supporting those without recourse to public
funds with care needs is falling on local authorities and is having
an increasing impact on their budgets.
We have therefore welcomed the European and
international Conventions regarding different types of human trafficking
(like the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) and its protocol
(1999) and the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime (2001),
which deals with child pornography on the Internet. We particularly
welcome the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against Trafficking
in Human Beings and are happy with the UK Government's decision
to finally sign the Convention. We would like to remind the Home
Affairs Committee of the extensive work that has been done by
the Congress of local and regional authorities of the Council
of Europe, in which UK local authorities play an active role.
11 February 2008
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