Supplementary memorandum submitted by
ECPAT UK
ECPAT UK is pleased to submit further evidence
to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into Human Trafficking.
This letter follows our earlier written submission of February
2008, oral evidence given on 29 April 2008 and an additional note
submitted jointly with the NSPCC in February 2009 focusing on
the child protection issues raised during operation Pentameter
2. We will not repeat any of these points here.
ECPAT UK will restrict its remarks to the following
subjects identified by the Committee, namely views on whether
the police and/or immigration officers have become more aware
of the problem of trafficking and are better able to identify
and support victims; whether the UK HTC has been a success in
promoting understanding of the problem of trafficking and co-ordinating
the various agencies involved in tackling it and any changes in
the provision of services for victims. Our remarks also respond
to the recent announcement that the Government will cease to fund
the Refugee Council's Children's panel.
ECPAT UK is a leading UK children's rights organisation
campaigning to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation.
ECPAT UK represents a coalition of leading UK organisations working
for the protection of children's rights; these are: Anti-Slavery
International, Jubilee Campaign, NSPCC, Save the Children UK,
The Children's Society, UNICEF UK, and World Vision UK. ECPAT
UK is a UK registered charity and the UK national representative
of the global ECPAT movement with partner organisations in over
70 countries around the world campaigning against the exploitation
of children, including child trafficking.
AWARENESS OF
THE PROBLEM
OF TRAFFICKING
1. ECPAT UK is aware that efforts have been
made in the last two years to increase awareness and understanding
within the police and immigration authorities. ECPAT UK has itself
delivered a significant amount of multi-agency training (eg to
social services, immigration service and police) in recent years
on the protection of child victims of trafficking; we are currently
at the end of the second year of a three-year Department for Children,
Schools and Families (DCSF) grant that has funded the design and
delivery of training for Local Authorities.
2. However, the awareness and response to
trafficking is inconsistent. ECPAT UK will publish a report on
18 March 2009 based on research that we have carried out in Wales.
The report establishes over 30 current or recent cases of children
who are highly likely to have been trafficked into Wales and have
been exploited in a number of ways including into forced labour,
sexual exploitation, cannabis production, begging and domestic
servitude. The report highlights a lack of knowledge and understanding
on the part of the agencies and practitioners involved. The management
of these cases is compromised by attitudes of disbelief and denial
that trafficking could happen in their locality, seeing it as
a problem existing elsewhere. The report concludes that when knowledge
and attitudes are poor the practice of safeguarding trafficked
children becomes impossible. The culture of disbelief still exists
right across the UK in local authorities, police and immigration
services. ECPAT UK sees this as a priority management issue for
statutory agencies and not just an issue of individual responsibility.
3. The Wales report also highlights a recurring
theme that ECPAT UK has found elsewhere, that of practitioners
treating migrant children differently from British children for
fear of offending cultural sensitivities, often leaving the child
vulnerable and without protection. ECPAT UK recommends that the
child protection concerns must always trump the notion of cultural
relativism, a finding made strongly by Lord Laming in his inquiry
into the death of Victoria Climbie. This is supported by guidance
in the All Wales Child Protection Procedures, "Professionals
should guide against myths and stereotypes, whether positive or
negative, and anxiety about being accused of oppressive or discriminatory
action should not prevent the necessary action to be taken to
safeguard a child",[207]
but it was clear from our research in Wales that this is not being
followed in practice.
4. ECPAT UK was frustrated that the UKBA
chose not to participate in the Wales research despite several
requests.
5. ECPAT UK has previously raised the anomaly
in the law that baby trafficking is not able to be prosecuted
using the existing Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants
etc) Act 2004 because of the poor wording in the legislation.
ECPAT UK is hopeful that the loophole will be closed in the Borders,
Citizenship and Immigration Bill or the Police and Crime Bill
currently going through Parliament which both provide an opportunity
to amend the definition of trafficking in UK law. The definition
is in need of strengthening as currently the Crown Prosecution
Service is not attempting to bring prosecutions in cases of baby
trafficking.
UK HUMAN TRAFFICKING
CENTRE
6. ECPAT UK was pleased that the Government
set up the Human Trafficking Centre in 2006. The UK HTC was set
up to be "the central point of development of law enforcement
expertise and operational coordination". However, we are
concerned that the UK HTC is failing to act with the requisite
urgency in matters relating to trafficked or suspected trafficked
children. A key responsibility for the UK HTC is to develop measures
to protect and support victims and it is not clear how this assistance
is being provided.
7. UK HTC presents itself as a multi-agency
centre but there is currently no child protection team within
the centre, neither is there a visible child protection policy
on the UK HTC website. UK HTC does not appear to fall under Section
11 of The Children Act (2004) placing a duty of care on all UKHTC
personnel. ECPAT UK would like to see all UKHTC policies audited
against child protection and safeguarding policies, and that competency-based
training on child protection is mandatory for all staff.
8. On an individual case basis it is not
clear that the UK HTC recognises the differences between a generic
victim care approach and more specific child rights approach to
protection as required in the UK's national and international
obligations to children. ECPAT UK has been involved in a number
of cases this year where UK HTC has failed to provide the requisite
advice on the status of suspected victims of child trafficking
to local authorities, immigration and law enforcement agencies
to identify the child's rights and child protection needs as the
principal concern, ie to remove the child to safe accommodation,
provide suitable physical, educational, psychological and emotional
support and ensure Section 47 of the Children Act processes are
in place.
9. Following our concerns with UK HTC we
are therefore concerned by the proposed plans to identify UK HTC,
alongside UK Border Authority as the "competent authority"
which must be identified as one of the provisions mandated by
the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking
in Human Beings (the Convention) within the National Referral
Mechanism. Based on their current response to child trafficking
cases it is not clear that the UK HTC and UK BA are best placed
to perform the role of the competent authority. We would like
to see a multi-agency approach and local decision making as part
of the national referral process. ECPAT UK believes that local
authorities are well placed to make competent authority decisions
about whether a child has been trafficked, yet the proposed Government
model does not include Local authorities as a `competent authority'.
Currently a number of local authorities are piloting an identification
and assessment toolkit for child victims of trafficking. This
toolkit goes well beyond anything that is being used by the UK
HTC. It is a robust and sophisticated tool that includes multi-agency
guidance, a joint assessment tool and referral form to assist
professionals in assessing the needs of the child and the continuing
risks that they may face from traffickers. It is not at all clear
why the Government refuses to accept that Local Authorities be
allowed to make competent authority decisions regarding the identification
of trafficked children.
10. ECPAT UK has called for a National Rapporteur
on Human Trafficking, with a specific responsibility for children,
to be established to act as a focal point on trafficking. The
National Rapporteur should have statutory powers to request information
from police, immigration authorities, child protection agencies
(both government and non-government). The Rapporteur would be
responsible for gathering data, analysing trends and emerging
issues, independent oversight and making recommendations for improvement
in the implementation of the UK Action plan on tackling Human
Trafficking. This work is not being carried out by the UK HTC
so would not duplicate current arrangements.
CHANGES IN
THE PROVISION
OF SERVICES
FOR VICTIMS
11. CPAT UK has welcomed the progress the
Government has made recently on trafficking; namely the ratification
of the Convention, the withdrawal of the reservation to the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child relating to immigration
and nationality and the very recent ratification of the optional
protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale
of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
12. However, ECPAT UK is concerned that
the Home Office will not have in place the necessary victim support
mechanisms once the Convention comes into force on 1 April 2009
despite repeated calls from ECPAT UK and others through a number
of fora including the Home Office Stakeholder Group on Child Trafficking.
Despite patches of good practice the asylum system, which is the
process through which most trafficked children find themselves,
is not sympathetic to child victims of trafficking or focused
on the rights of the child or victim protection.
13. It is not clear what "special protection
measures" for children (as mentioned in Trafficking Convention
Article 10) will be in place from 1 April. The Government have
not agreed to a system of guardianship, neither are they offering
a separate renewable residence permit system for children. It
has been proposed by the Home Office that the existing discretionary
leave provisions will suffice. We do not believe this is the case
and this is likely to be legally challenged. The provision of
special support to children must not be contingent on their participation
in criminal investigations.
14. ECPAT UK is gravely concerned by the
decision of the UK Border Agency to cease funding the Refugee
Council's Children's Panel after 2009-10 and to end funding to
age-disputed young people this year. The Children's Panel has
been instrumental in assisting child victims of trafficking. The
Home Office has funded the Children's Panel since 1994, to provide
essential advice and support to newly arrived separated children
who are seeking asylum on their own in the United Kingdom. The
UKBA argue that the processes and arrangements that they currently
have in place with local authorities mean that age-disputed young
people are fairly assessed and receive the appropriate service.
They also state that the specialist authority model proposed within
the UASC Reform Programme will also ensure that local authorities
provide some services currently provided by the Children's Panel.
This is despite no firm arrangements yet being in place for specialist
authorities within the Reform Programme.
15. The gaps in child protection for this
vulnerable group of children is a significant area of concern
and is illustrated by the recent Audit Commission report which
found that services for vulnerable children in England deteriorated
last year and remain the weakest area of councils' work. Only
nine authorities achieved the maximum four-star rating for children's
services.
16. ECPAT UK, along with other children's
organisations, believes that a system of guardianship for separated
children is the only mechanism that will ensure that all actions
and decisions with respect to that child will be made in their
best interests. This is particularly important for trafficked
children. A Guardian would assist the trafficked child to navigate
across the boundaries of statutory services, legal advisors and
non-government agencies and to support the child in every aspect
of their wellbeing. ECPAT UK research shows that when trafficked
children go missing from local authority care there has been very
little cooperation between agencies, and across local and international
boundaries, to trace children and make contact with their families.
A system of Guardianship is recommended by the Convention and
is also supported by the CRC Committee in their concluding observations.
17. The recent report on Channel 4 News
(4 March 2009) highlighted the situation in Hillingdon where in
the period from January 2007-March 2008 200 children were identified
as potentially trafficked into Heathrow and taken in to local
authority care. Of these children 79 young Chinese women had disappeared
and only five had been found. ECPAT UK has previously highlighted
the unacceptable situation of children going missing yet it is
clearly an ongoing problem.
March 2009
207 All Wales Child Protection Procedures 2008, Section
1.2.4. Back
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