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People Trafficking

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, has given us a welcome opportunity to review the progress made in fighting human trafficking. The Government are to be congratulated on establishing UKHTC and the Reflex programme to combat the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, which has been given a high priority by SOCA, and on deciding to sign the Council of Europe convention. As recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, we are putting resources into projects in source countries in the Balkans, West Africa and south-east Asia. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority are both useful initiatives, and we welcome the development of measures to ensure standardised identification procedures, referral protocols and the provision of support services for victims. The UK action plan is a comprehensive approach to the problem, listing 62 objectives, and there is not time to go through them in detail. However, the JCWI points out that, although women form the great majority of trafficking victims, the objectives do not include any reference to gender impact analysis of the plan. That is in spite of the equality impact assessment table, which notes the requirement for gender sensitivity under several different headings. When the Minister comes to reply, perhaps he can explain that omission. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, mentioned the ILO’s estimate that 2.5 million people have been trafficked into forced labour. Although a large fraction of those will be in the EU, the evidence is largely anecdotal, particularly if those trafficked for sexual exploitation are excluded. The categories are not distinct, because victims of trafficking into forced labour, both children and adults, may also be sexually exploited, and, as the action plan says, the convention requires signatories to apply the same standards of protection and support to all victims. We welcome the Government’s consideration of suspending removal action from all victims subject to immigration control and funding their support while they make up their minds about their future, as the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, demanded. At present, this is limited to women rescued from forced prostitution. The example given by the Government is domestic servitude, which was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. Kalayaan, the NGO which campaigns for justice for migrant domestic workers, estimates that nearly 87,000 entered the UK in this capacity over the five years ending December 2006. Only 7 per cent of those applied for an extension of leave to remain after the first six months, so there is no evidence that migrant domestic workers are abusing the immigration system as a route to settlement, as is sometimes claimed. In Kalayaan’s survey, mentioned by the noble Earl, it was found that 86 per cent were made to work more than 16 hours a day, 71 per cent were not given enough to eat and 56 per cent had no private room or space of their own. The problem is also highlighted in a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on the experiences of women and children in both sex and domestic work, and combinations of the two. About 8 per cent of its sample had originally been trafficked for domestic work but had then been subject to sexual abuse. If that proportion were applied to the estimate of the 4,000 women who were trafficked for sex in 2003, it would mean that 320 domestic workers suffered sexual abuse in that year, to say nothing of other forms of exploitation. We have heard that the Government’s answer is to grant MDWs a non-renewable six-month visa and to prohibit them from changing employers, as they could before. They will not be protected by UK employment legislation and will be more vulnerable to exploitation because, if they leave an abusive employer, they immediately lose their leave to remain in the UK. That cannot be right, nor can it be fair to penalise legitimate employers of domestic carers of children and elderly persons, who do not undermine the local labour market because native EU citizens are not available for that type of work. In care homes, there are perennial shortages of staff, raising the temptation for exploitation. Anti-Slavery International quote the exploitation of workers from Bulgaria, who were charged £2,000 for the arrangement of their jobs, the repayment with excessive interest being deducted from their wages, leaving them in debt bondage. Now, the BIA is refusing all applications for renewal of senior carer work permits, while still pocketing the £190 non-refundable fee. Are they waiting for the Migration Impacts Forum, established in April, to advise on whether carers should be admitted as tier 3 to fill a temporary gap in the labour market, there being no category in the points-based system for long-term gaps in the low skilled labour market? The effect will be to encourage illegal immigration, and to boost the opportunities for exploiting legal migrants in care work by the use of threats, force and deception. How are people coerced into forced labour? Anti-Slavery International says that unlike with prostitution, violence is rare, but psychological pressure and threats are used, often in combination with debt bondage and live-in accommodation with no security of tenure. The retention or withholding of documents, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has been one method of pressuring migrant workers in the past, mentioned in the helpful literature review recently published by the Home Office. We have to criminalise the practice under Article 20 of the Council of Europe convention before we can ratify, and I wonder whether the Minister can explain why the Government did not deal with that in the UK Borders Bill, which is currently before your Lordships. The review quotes three studies of child trafficking, and anecdotal evidence from social workers of suspected cases they encountered. The authors thought the cases identified severely under-represented the actual numbers. It is reported that many children had been in the care of social services and went missing, as has been mentioned, and I wonder if we are planning to keep a central record of these victims, as we will be obliged to do when we join the SIS II in 2010? The Home Office consultation on support for UASC, which has just finished, refers to the National Register for Unaccompanied Children, which presumably tags those who go missing and should enable a tentative assessment to be made of the circumstances. It says that we need to establish better links between social workers and immigration officials, and presumably police child protection officers at the airports. How is this work progressing and, of the 9,000 new UASC cases over the years 2004-06, how many have gone missing? Under the global visa regulations, mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, which were introduced in February 2006, a child who is subject to entry clearance must be accompanied by a vignette on which is recorded the personal details of the child and of the person with whom they should be travelling or, in the case of an unaccompanied child, of the UK sponsor. Where there is a discrepancy, the possibility of trafficking should be flagged up, but ECPAT UK says that in practice, the BIA first look at potential breaches of the immigration rules. We need to know whether a central record is being kept of the discrepancies and the action taken to follow them up, and whether the code of practice on the carriage of minors, which was scheduled to be published in May 2007, has in fact been implemented. I hope that it contains a provision that where any suspicion of trafficking arises, the child and the adult sponsor should be interviewed separately, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, recommended. The first line of defence against child trafficking must be overseas, with ECOs and airline liaison officers, and not at the ports of entry. I hope that the Government will not only take on board the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and others in our debate, but that we will make periodic reports to Parliament at regular intervals on the progress made with implementation of the UK action plan, and particularly with ratification of the convention, so that we can make our own contribution towards the eradication of the evil practice of human trafficking. At the end of the debate in another place a month ago, the honourable Member, Mr Andrew Dismore, promised to return to the subject. He can be certain that we will, too.