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Human Trafficking

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I will deal with such additional issues later. He is right that we need support throughout the country; I will make a couple of recommendations in that regard shortly. Cultural mediators, who have been so successful in Italy, provide a clear role in helping to bridge the gap between the victim, the NGOs and the authorities. We need to see more of that here. We must help victims reintegrate in their source countries to overcome the risk of re-trafficking, if they wish to return. I am sad to note that some 20 per cent. of POPPY project clients have been re-trafficked. We heard of one poor woman who had been re-sold by her family within only three days of her return to the source country. Vietnamese children are at particularly high risk of re-trafficking, and much more work must be done on the education of potential victims, who are extremely vulnerable. We must provide arrangements to enable victims to come to terms with what has happened to them, through counselling and support of that nature. The main conclusion of our report was that the Government need to focus more on the victims of trafficking. Legislation should treat trafficked labour as victims of crime, not as offenders under immigration law. I welcome the Government’s confirmation that victims of trafficking should not now be charged with immigration offences and that the Crown Prosecution Service can discontinue cases where appropriate. I hope that that translates into practice. Will my hon. Friend the Minister say whether any such cases have been discontinued, and whether since that announcement any people have been charged? There have been some improvements to the law to help deal with human trafficking, most recently those proposed in the UK Borders Bill, but much more can be done to protect victims more effectively through legislation. We recently considered the Bill and proposed amendments that would help the victims of trafficking. They included, where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person is a victim of trafficking, not removing that person until the process of identifying whether they are a victim is completed. We recommended a recovery and reflection period of three months for victims, during which time no immigration enforcement measures should be taken against them. That repeated the recommendation in our report. On a point that the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) raised, we recommended that renewable residence permits of up to six months’ duration should be granted to victims of trafficking. Will my hon. Friend the Minister confirm whether the Government share our view that more needs to be done protect victims? Does he agree that such changes to legislation could make a big difference, and will the Government take on board our proposals for amendments to the UK Borders Bill as it proceeds through Parliament? The new UK Human Trafficking Centre has the potential to play an important role. It provides a 24-hour contact point for front-line staff to help identify victims. We would welcome more information about how it is operating in practice, particularly on victim protection. Approximately 25 per cent. of the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s activities are devoted to organised immigration crime, including trafficking. However, we expressed concern about the lack of adequate training for front-line staff in dealing with human trafficking, and there is also an urgent need to improve the rate of prosecutions, as the hon. Member for Totnes indicated in an earlier intervention. Will my hon. Friend the Minister indicate how the Government are dealing with those problems, and in particular how they will turn the large number of arrests last year into prosecutions? The voluntary sector has a key role to play. The POPPY project, which I have mentioned several times, helps with accommodation, counselling, medical assistance and education for women trafficked for prostitution.