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Baroness Prosser: I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for calling this debate and I am extremely pleased to be able to participate. As the noble Baroness has said, I attended the 1995 Beijing conference. I was a representative of the United Kingdom trade union movement and I and my TUC colleague worked with trade unionists from around the world to ensure that the final text, subsequently known as the platform for action, contained targets for governments which would improve women's opportunities within the world of work.

For the past three years, I have, in my capacity as chair of the Women's National Commission, attended the United Nations in New York to participate as part of the UK delegation to what is known as the Commission on the Status of Women. CSW, for
 
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clarity's sake, is a sub-committee of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It meets for two weeks every March and, among other things, looks in depth at developments on certain themes contained within the platform for action.

The UK Government's delegation this year was led by the Minster of State for women, Jacqui Smith, together with her senior Civil Service team. The Women's National Commission acted as the umbrella for around 50 women from 23 women's organisations. My role at CSW is to act as a link between the UK Government and women's organisations which represent the voices of women in civil society. Through that mechanism, we are able to bring to the Government expertise and knowledge of issues as diverse as human trafficking, the Middle East, women's health, poverty, violence against women and many more.

The arrangements at CSW for engagement between the NGOs and the UK Government are the envy of women from other parts of the world. The openness with which the NGOs are received and the degree of information exchange are valued by all concerned. That does not mean, however, that back here in the UK all government departments have woken up to the need for them to play a role in delivering the demands of the platform for action.

Much work has been done by this Government to try to redress the imbalances of opportunities between men and women. For example, I am delighted that for the first time ever we have a national strategy for childcare, a much improved maternity and paternity leave and pay system and a national minimum wage. I could go on and cover many more. But in too many areas there remains too big a gap between policy and practice. Why are there still so few women on public bodies and company boards? Why is there always insufficient funding for women victims of violence? Why are women still the majority of poor pensioners and why are they corralled into a range of low-paying occupations?

To turn policy into practice, mechanisms need to be introduced that will dig down into decision-making at all levels and then dig down further into service delivery. At CSW this year, the UK Government sponsored a resolution agreed by consensus on gender mainstreaming of national policies and programmes. I hope that that will spur everyone to realising that improvements in the situation between women and men will not come about by warm words or osmosis; actions have to be taken and systems introduced.

Finally, let me mention the millennium development goals, which cover areas such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, sustainability, child mortality and more. Goal 3 is to promote gender equality and empower women. Its target is to eliminate gender disparity in education. There is to be an MDG summit in September, at which we shall be represented by our Prime Minister. In July, there is to be a UN meeting for civil society.
 
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In the lead-up to those events, work must be done to link the demands of the platform for action into the targets of the millennium development goals. This is another way in which to call for gender mainstreaming. Failure to take account of the platform for action will mean that all the work going into the millennium development goals, laudable and admirable though it is, will fail to take account of the particular needs of women and girls. I look forward to the Minister's reply.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Gould of Potternewton): I apologise for the delay, but for some reason we have lost a chairperson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, has to go.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: I am delighted that we have women here who can multi-task.

I warmly welcome this short debate and congratulate my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton on her initiative. Like my noble friends Lady Gale and Lady Morgan of Drefelin, I am Welsh, and I celebrate the fact that the National Assembly for Wales is 50 per cent women and the Cabinet 56 per cent. There is still a long way to go before women break through the power barrier in Wales, but it is very good to see progress being made in the National Assembly. I also celebrate the fact that in the voluntary sector in Wales, 23 voluntary sector organisations are headed by black and ethnic minority women. That is terrific.

Today, however, I wish to focus on trafficking, a violation of human dignity and human rights that is no less than modern-day slave trading. As we have heard, women have made tangible progress in the 10 years since Beijing, but the odious practice of trafficking of both women and children is on the increase. Quite rightly the elimination of trafficking in women is a strategic objective of the Beijing platform for action—and it is action that we must take if we are to stop this fast-growing international crime.

The extent of the problem is frightening. The sex trafficking industry is growing at such a rate that it is thought to be the second largest international problem behind drugs. It is an enormous commercial concern with an annual world-wide turnover of approximately $12 billion. A CIA report estimates that traffickers make up to a quarter of a million dollars when one woman is trafficked and re-trafficked. More than 1 million women and girls are being trafficked around the world and it is thought that organised groups arranging women to come to the UK is on the increase. All of those figures are so terrifying.

Many of the women live—or exist—on our doorstep, within a few miles radius of your Lordship's House. They are victims, threatened by violence, deceived or coerced so that they can be exploited as forced or enslaved workers. Often the initial deception capitalises on their desire or need to escape poverty, and as soon as their journey into slavery begins, so does the systematic abuse of their rights.
 
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Women are often sold several times during the journey between their home and their destination from which escape is almost impossible. As Amnesty International states:

"At a trial in Gjilan, a trafficked woman testified that she had been kept in a cellar, where she slept at night and serviced clients during the day. Food, drink and a bucket for use as a lavatory were brought down to her. She only left the cellar when she was driven by her trafficker to meet clients".

That was Kosovo in 2002. While I regret that the problem has probably not diminished there in the past three years, today that girl might end up in a similar situation in London. It is known that approximately 70 per cent of women involved in off-street prostitution in Soho are Albanian or Kosovan, and the Metropolitan Police estimate that trafficked women are forced to see between 30 and 40 clients a day.

Clearly the traffickers are the evil and greedy dregs of humanity, and it is essential to prosecute them—I am so pleased to hear from my noble friend Lady Gould that some prosecutions have already taken place under the Sexual Offences Act—but I also despise those who knowingly use these women. They may not regard themselves as criminals, but they are on the demand side of terrible criminal exploitation. The rights of these vulnerable and abused women must be protected, but it is also important that we deal with the root causes.

There are many discussions about how to prevent trafficking but, fundamentally, I believe that two forces drive trafficking in women. The first is poverty in countries of origin, which produces a fatal mixture of desperation and belief in the possibility of a better life somewhere else. The other is the demand for prostitution, coupled with a disregard for human life and the human rights of women—a perception that women can be used like objects devoid of free will and dignity. I recognise that there are no short-term solutions to either the eradication of poverty or the changing of gender perceptions, but until these problems are properly dealt with, market forces—demand and supply—will try to subvert whatever measures are in place to protect and support victims and prosecute the criminals involved.

Trafficking is clearly a cross-border problem, and that demands cross-border solutions. I therefore very much welcome the establishment of Reflex and the initiative taken by my right honourable friend the Solicitor-General to galvanise a European-wide crackdown on trafficking. The plan that she presented to Eurojust involves protection for victims, more effective prosecution of traffickers and the seizure of proceeds of crime. I do not understand, however, why the UK opted out of an EU directive on trafficking last year. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could enlighten me on that.

From an Answer to a Starred Question on trafficking given on 29 November, I know that the UK participated fully in the negotiations on the draft Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. I understand that this binding convention has now been finalised and that it
 
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will be open for ratification in May. I trust that my noble friend the Minister can assure me that Britain will ratify.

Finally, I urge the Government to make greater resources available both to combat trafficking and to protect victims. I am pleased that the Home Office has funded the excellent POPPY Project. However, it has only 25 places, and clearly more projects are necessary to provide safety, housing, support, information and escape routes for women involved in prostitution.

More than 170 years ago, slavery was abolished in this country. Indeed, last year was proclaimed by the UN as the international year to commemorate the struggle against slavery and its abolition, yet slavery is commonplace in 2005. Every day, trafficked women and girls are sold into forced prostitution and forced labour throughout the world. They are beaten, raped, locked up, degraded and defiled; they cannot escape their modern-day slavery. As they are abused, so their human rights are violated and our common standards of humanity are called into question. As human beings, as women and as parliamentarians, it is incumbent on us all to draw attention to the evils of trafficking and to work as swiftly as possible towards fulfilling the strategic objective of the Beijing platform for action to eliminate trafficking.

5.25 p.m.

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