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The Deputy Speaker (Lord Skelmersdale): My Lords, I have some difficulty in calling the amendment. Will the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, please tell me to which amendment he spoke?
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I hope that I spoke to Amendments Nos. 76, 77 and 78.
The Deputy Speaker: I see. In fact, we have already passed Amendment No. 76, so I shall call Amendment No. 77.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I would not like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to feel that he was on his own in
this concern. We are dealing with an issue of deep human anguish and suffering. It is an incredible trauma for the people involved. One has only to read today's Evening Standard to see another example of what we are talking about.Not for the first time, the noble Lord has put forward a humane, sensible and rational approach to how the matter should be handled. He has suggested how we can fulfil our responsibilities, first, in order to be able to obtain convictions without unnecessary obstacles in the way; secondly, to ensure that people have an opportunity to sort themselves out in the middle of the incredibly disturbed situation in which they find themselves psychologically; and, thirdly, that the organisations which do so much work on our behalf to preserve the values we love to talk about in this House and which get down to the nitty-gritty of making the proposals work should receive the practical support they deserve in their front-line activities.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I support the remarks made by the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Avebury. I believe that Amendments Nos. 76, 77 and 78 are needed in legislation and this is the moment when we should act.
This morning I had the opportunity to address a conference of young people—the Inter-schools Human Rights Conference which was held in north London. It was organised by school children from Haringey and Tottenham and it was attended by about 150 children. It was interesting to note that the issue they had chosen to debate and to turn into their campaign was that of human trafficking. I understand that they are to send postcards and letters to Ministers, which is a good exercise because it shows young people how they can help to make a difference. It is therefore a real and live issue in the minds of many people. I want to pay tribute to the Government for the way in which they have responded to the matter during the past year.
In March I had the fortune to have a balloted debate and chose to raise the issue of human trafficking. Noble Lords from all sides of the House took part. I recall in particular the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, and the moving intervention of my noble friend Lord Wilberforce in supporting the proposition that changes should be made to the law.
Subsequently, I had the opportunity to see the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, at the Home Office and was extremely pleased by the positive reaction that he gave to me and Mike Kaye who represented Anti-Slavery International during our meeting. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, who is in his seat, will also recall the response that he gave during the Proceeds of Crime Bill when I moved an amendment that a fund should be set up, like that which we used to confiscate assets from drug dealers, to confiscate the assets of people involved in human trafficking and to use it to help the victims. Although the Government said that they were unable to support and accept the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, promised
that they would keep the issue under review in order to see whether those funds might be used in due course. They could be used to do what was outlined in the fund, which would be entirely reliant on the Treasury but which is proposed in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, today.The Government have also indicated that they intend to legislate. Although they cannot tell us what will be in the Queen's Speech, it is nevertheless clear that the Government have this matter as a high priority. When such legislation comes before the House, it is legitimate and reasonable for noble Lords to keep the Government on their toes and to continue to press for the changes that are needed. I refer, for instance, to the reflection period, which is a reality in Holland and Belgium. Holland has precisely the formula referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, of a six-month period for children and a three-month period for adults.
The fact that we need to take this action was recently brought home to me in a graphic way. Two weeks ago I had a harrowing experience when I travelled to the war-torn area of southern Sudan. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, reminded the House in a debate on Monday, 2 million people have died there in the past 20 years. She also made the point that some 4 million people have been displaced during that conflict and that slaving and trading has become part of it. Many people are trafficked and sold on into various forms of human slavery.
In northern Kenya, an area that is not affected by warfare, the same phenomenon of slaving and trading is occurring. Indeed, with a massive exponential increase in the numbers of AIDS victims, children are being orphaned at an extraordinary rate. When I met UNICEF representatives during my visit there, they told me that there are already 1 million orphaned children in that part of the world and that they expect that number to rise to about 13 million by 2010. World-wide, they say that by the same year the number of orphans in the world will have risen to about 106 million children. These children are, of course, extraordinarily vulnerable to issues such as trafficking, being sold on into exploitation, into sexual slavery and into all the other things that we in this House are all too well aware of.
People from ANPPCAN, one of the local organisations in Kenya fighting against trafficking, told me that frequently children are being exploited and driven into sex slavery and prostitution. They said that they are handed over to bogus employment bureaux run by racketeers and that it is not long before they become prostitutes and become HIV/AIDS positive themselves. Often these youngsters are sold on to other countries too, as we are well aware in the UK.
Dr Radhika Coomaraswarmy, who is the UN's special rapporteur on violence against women, told me when I met her a few months ago that traffickers are,
- "fishing in the stream of migration".
Earlier this year, the Financial Times stated that, according to the UN's drug control and crime prevention agency in Vienna, human trafficking has become the fastest growing facet of organised crime. It is extraordinarily lucrative. Powerful criminal organisations are estimated to earn about £4.3 billion a year from economic and sexual slavery. The trafficking of people is considered to be the third largest source of profits for organised crime after the trafficking of drugs and firearms.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred to a story in today's London Evening Standard written by Sally Smith. It graphically illustrates the need for the amendments before the House. The article concerns a young Romanian girl, Natasha, aged 18, who,
- "wound up here in London—penniless, confused, sexually abused and terrified for her life. The victim of human traffickers, and of one particularly brutal man"—
- "Natasha found herself imprisoned in a house in north London and threatened with enforced prostitution".
I shall not read the entire article—it is a very good article and I recommend that noble Lords study it—but perhaps I may read one or two further extracts. Natasha continues:
- "I know he"—
- "will follow me and hunt me down . . . He is angry with me and has threatened my friends and my parents back in Romania. He says the Russians"—
- "will kill me".
- "It's a highly lucrative business for the violent men who 'own' them. Traded at between £5,000 and £10,000 each"—
- "women turning 10 'tricks' a day at the bottom end of the market bring around £100,000 a year for their pimps. 'You don't have to go very far upmarket from that to realise why this is such big business', says Chief Superintendent Simon Humphrey, head of Scotland Yard's vice squad. 'In Soho, where there are about 70 brothels, each woman will generate more than double that figure'".
I shall read one other extract. Chief Superintendent Humphrey said:
- "If we don't get our politicians to act against this trade, it's going to radically alter our whole society and continue to wreck lives".
About nine months ago, Simon Humphrey also said,
- "Quite frankly we are getting our priorities wrong in this country. We care more about catching car criminals and people involved in consumer crime but we are doing nothing to help children who are being sexually exploited".
These amendments seek to address the issues that Superintendent Humphrey has raised. They would strengthen the ability of the police to prosecute and
they would protect someone like Natasha, the subject of the article. They would provide a support fund to help victims and they would deal with the issue of a reflection period and the question of definition. For all those reasons I support the amendments.I have one question for the Minister. When the Proceeds of Crime Bill was before the House, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about the 60 young people who had been victims of trafficking and had been placed in the care of West Sussex social services. All of those children subsequently disappeared from care. The noble Lord will recall that when he looked into the figures another handful had disappeared, even after the issue had been raised in this House.
I do not expect an answer from the Minister this evening, but for the record will the noble Lord tell us in due course whether more children have disappeared from our care, those rescued from trafficking and in the hands of social services; and whether we have any idea what has now happened to any of those children who disappeared into the ether. Their stories alone are enough to impel us into ensuring that urgent legislation is enacted on this subject.
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