Memorandum submitted by STOP THE TRAFFIK
Executive Summary
Stop The Traffik welcomes the Home Affairs Committee
Inquiry into Human Trafficking, and the work of the government
to date. However, there are several measures that should be taken
to improve effectiveness in this area, including establishing
a Royal Commission to investigate the modern-day slave trade;
Monitoring Teams at all points of entry to rescue victims; a systematic
nationwide network of support services for victims; a Europe-wide
single number helpline for victims that routes to national assistance;
the mainstreaming of anti-trafficking into poverty reduction programmes;
the establishment of a National Rapporteur to Tackle Human Trafficking;
and a Traffik Free Guarantee on products sold in the UK.
Introduction
1. Stop The Traffik is a growing global
coalition of over 1000 member organisations working in over 50
countries to prevent the traffic in people, prosecute the traffickers,
and protect the victims, through raising awareness, advocacy,
and resources. For more information, please see www.stopthetraffik.org
2. Stop The Traffik welcomes the Home Affairs
Committee Inquiry into Human Trafficking, and urges the Committee
to take into account submissions by various parties to other similar
inquiries eg Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Estimating the scale and type of activity
3. The scale and scope of human trafficking
in both the UK and globally is uncertain. The UK government is
currently making insufficient progress towards Action Point 2
of the UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking (Home Office,
March 2007), which aims to "identify knowledge gaps and undertake
targeted research".
4. A first step would be to support suggested
initiatives such as Baroness Caroline Cox's Royal Commission (Slavery)
Bill, which aims "to enquire into the subject of slavery...and
report on possible means for its global abolition". To date
the government has not yet done so.
The difficulty of finding those who have been
trafficked when they are normally too frightened to complain to
the authorities; and the role of NGOs in helping to identify and
assist victims
5. The reason many victims are too frightened
to approach the authorities is often due to bad experiences with
officials in source and transit countries. This does not seem
to have been recognised by the UK government when establishing
the police-led UK Human Trafficking Centre, which aims to coordinate
national anti-trafficking work (www.ukhtc.org).
6. NGOs should therefore be integral to
authorities' attempts to identify and assist victims. NGO experts
should form part of Monitoring Teams that are present at all points
of entry into the UK. They would help identify, rescue, protect,
and support potential and actual victims of trafficking. This
would be a nationwide and permanent extension of Heathrow Airport's
Operation Paladin in 2006.
The treatment of those who have been trafficked
but have no legal right to remain in the UK, including the requirements
imposed by the Council of Europe Convention on Combating Human
Trafficking
7. The treatment of victims of trafficking
in the UK leaves much to be desired. Whilst the Poppy and Tara
projects continue to be the only government-supported services
specifically for victims of trafficking, their funding is short-term
and their criteria leaves many referrals without aid. Article
13 of the Council of Europe Convention requires a "30 day
recovery and reflection period" for identified victims, who
will be provided holistic assistance (Article 12). To date the
UK government is in no position to implement this.
8. The UK government can move to fulfil
Action Point 32 of the UK Action Plan in "providing support
provisions on a national level" by resourcing NGO support
services for victims to a standardised and long-term level. Enforcement
agencies must also adopt a victim-centred human rights approach
in practice as well as in rhetoric.
Cooperation with the EU (including Europol); and
control of the EU's external frontiers
9. Cooperation with the EU appears to be
improving, as evidenced by the UK hosting of European seminars
on the subject. However, the piecemeal approach to such avenues
for action as victims' helplines is unhelpful and confusing to
all concerned, be they victims, professionals, NGOs, or members
of the public.
10. The UK government should support moves
to establish a single number helpline for victims. This would
be the same number across Europe, but would route to existing
national services in each country. Victims who do not know which
country they are in would then be able to access local support
from a single number. Government concerns over management and
language difficulties are without merit.
Relations with transit and source countries, and
the role of Interpol and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
11. Relations with transit and source countries
on tackling trafficking are tentative. Whilst progress is being
made with such countries as Romania and Bulgaria, the UK government
is putting very little emphasis on tackling the problem at its
roots—the inequality and poverty in source countries that
lead many victims into being trafficked.
12. Action Point 5 of the UK Action Plan
aims to "support anti-trafficking projects which address...the
root causes of trafficking". Yet the government has yet to
make the connection between human trafficking and issues identified
by the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as lack
of education, gender disparity, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. It
is only by mainstreaming anti-trafficking into bilateral and multilateral
poverty reduction programmes, through identifying and assisting
those most vulnerable to trafficking, that both the MDGs and a
reduction in the modern-day slave trade will be achieved.
Effectiveness of the coordination between public
authorities in the UK
13. Coordination between public authorities
on tackling trafficking remains in its infant stages. Police and
law enforcement agencies continue to approach victims with an
agenda to tackle irregular migration, the results of which are
incompatible with the requirements of the Council of Europe Convention.
14. The current Inter-Departmental Ministerial
Group (IDMG) tasked with coordinating the UK's anti-trafficking
work meets irregularly and devotes insufficient time to the issue.
The government should establish a National Rapporteur to Tackle
Human Trafficking, a post that has already been successfully established
in other countries and agencies. This person would have more time,
resources, profile, and power than the IDMG, and be better placed
to coordinate the public authorities in a victim-centred human
rights approach.
Conclusion
15. As well as the terms of reference addressed
above, the Home Affairs Committee would do well to examine the
existence of human trafficking in corporate supply chains that
produce goods for this country. Companies based in the UK are
currently profiting from the proceeds of the modern-day slave
trade.
16. For example, over 12,000 children are
trafficked into slavery on cocoa plantations in the Cote d'Ivoire
in West Africa, to farm the chocolate that is sold in the UK.
Chocolate companies do not deny this but have failed to effectively
address child trafficking in their supply chains. The Committee
and the government should ensure that these companies and others
can guarantee that their goods have not been produced using trafficked
labour.
18 February 2008
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