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People Trafficking

My Lords, I join the general congratulation of the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, on bringing forward this debate on the extremely important issue of human trafficking. I congratulate all those who have taken part. Noble Lords have, as ever, surpassed themselves in dealing with the issue with great sensitivity and raising different aspects of it. I apologise in advance if I fail to answer all the questions that have been asked. I tried to make a note of most of them, but suspect that I will have to do what most Ministers do: offer to write to noble Lords and circulate answers to some of the more complex issues raised in the debate. I take the same point of departure as the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh: the commemoration this year of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. Like the noble Lord, I pay tribute to that great Conservative, Wilberforce, for his role in vigorously pursuing the abolition of the slave trade and ensuring that the Government enforced it internationally and worked to end that trade in all its aspects. I commend to the House the fantastic exhibition currently in Westminster Hall which not only details the historic violence and oppression of the slave trade, but points out the discrimination and violence faced by many in the world today as a result of human trafficking. It brings home to us the reality of what that is like, and makes alive the issue of human slavery in our times. That is why I am pleased that we have had the opportunity for this debate. The one thing on which we can all agree, which has been evident from comments, is that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said, we must look for more action, activity and things that we can do to tackle trafficking. There can be no doubt that human trafficking is a vile trade that demeans human life. Individuals are subject to sexual and labour exploitation, and are often treated in the most barbaric way, as was said in this debate. As many noble Lords made plain, this crime respects no boundaries. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, in particular, referred to its international nature and drew attention to some horrific international estimates of its extent. Those responsible are motivated only by the money made at the expense of human suffering. Trafficking involves migration, normally over many country borders. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to internal trafficking and made a good point. It is something that we are very concerned about, as I hope I shall demonstrate. The pattern, certainly as far as trafficking for sexual exploitation is concerned, is for trafficked persons to be moved from poorer countries of the world to feed demand in richer countries. While that is perhaps an oversimplification, it shows that trafficking is a global crime that requires a global response. As noble Lords said, vulnerable people from poorer parts of the world, especially young women and girls, are lured by the prospect of a well paid job as a domestic servant, au pair, waitress or factory worker. Upon arrival at their destination, victims are placed in conditions controlled by traffickers and exploited to earn illicit revenues. We recognise the need to address the underlying reasons why so many people are vulnerable to exploitation, which are poverty and the most barbaric forms of social exclusion. The Department for International Development is already playing a leading role in the fight against poverty and social injustice through support for our long-term development programme, and we will continue that work. We are also working through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to support projects designed to build capacity in source and transit countries to deal with organised crime issues and to support raising awareness projects. Dealing with the problem at source is, in the end, the most effective means of cutting off the supply, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made plain. It is our intention to adopt a more proactive approach to awareness raising in vulnerable groups and communities, including publicising successful UK prosecutions of traffickers in source and transit countries. A number of speakers in this debate recognised the threat posed to the UK by this particularly unpleasant form of organised immigration crime. We introduced tough legislation comprehensively to criminalise trafficking: the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. Those dedicated trafficking offences carry a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment and are lifestyle offences for the purposes of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, so it can be brought to bear on those who are caught committing them. We are currently taking steps to amend the trafficking legislation in the UK Borders Bill to extend the territorial application of trafficking offences to cover acts of facilitation carried out overseas, irrespective of the nationality of the person carrying out the acts. However, we acknowledge that putting in place legislation must be accompanied by effective and active enforcement. A number of noble Lords referred to that, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Trimble. We have seen the success of operations such as Operation Pentameter in 2006. I argue, and I am sure a number of other noble Lords would too, that we need to do more of that, and that is our intention. That operation was a national police-led operation to identify individuals trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation. It demonstrated that this crime is happening not just in big cities, but also in small towns and rural communities in the United Kingdom and that it is an ever-present problem. In just three months the operation resulted in the identification of 87 victims of trafficking, including 12 minors. It also confirmed that there is still significant work to do on this. On 23 March of this year we published the UK National Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking. I was grateful that that was welcomed. The plan sets out an end-to-end strategy to combat trafficking, with a focus on five key areas: prevention, law enforcement and prosecutions, protection and assistance to adult victims, child trafficking, and labour exploitation. In some respects it picks up some of the points and issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, in his five-point action plan. I argue that we go further than that. We have established the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre to improve the law enforcement response in this area and to mainstream this type of enforcement activity. The centre will support the overarching aim of moving the UK to a leading position in the prevention and investigation of trafficking. Since its launch in October, it has made great strides towards becoming a central point for the development of expertise and operational co-ordination. On the same day that we launched our action plan, the Home Secretary signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Tackling Trafficking in Human Beings. I know we received some criticism for the delay on that, but there were good reasons. We are now investigating how best to implement the articles in the convention, with the aim of being in a position to ratify it as soon as practical. Our decision to sign the convention allows us to build on existing measures, such as our support for the Poppy Project, and to move from our current supportive approach to a more human rights focused strategy. Although developing the necessary robust and effective system that incorporates the full range of provisions will take some time, we recognise fully the need to continue developing protection and assistance for victims in the interim—a matter about which the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, is particularly concerned. Accordingly, our approach to assistance for victims focuses on three main areas: improving identification and referral procedures, including the development of a national referral mechanism; enhancing the support available and extending the rights for adult victims; and assisting the reintegration and resettlement of victims to reduce the opportunity for retrafficking. We set out in the action plan that we want to ensure that frontline staff have the right tools and expertise to identify victims and to offer them protection and support, and we will develop a national referral mechanism with a clear point of contact for initial identification. Many of the interventions already in existence for adult trafficking apply equally and in similar terms to the trafficking of children, especially for prevention and law enforcement. However, the measures to ensure that child victims are safeguarded and protected are markedly different. To this end we intend to introduce measures to ensure that frontline staff, including the health service, education and social work professionals, have the right tools to deal with this particular area. We shall act in partnership with carriers, reduce demand for trafficked children within the UK and develop a new e-learning tool and training programme on safeguarding child victims to complement the best practice guidance. However, none of our plans for action in the UK will have the greatest impact without a consideration of the international dimension. We are committed to improving exchange of information with international partners to ensure that we have a full strategic picture of the problem. A project recently run under the auspices of the UKHTC and the International Organization for Migration in Bulgaria and Romania, as well as meeting its immediate awareness-raising objectives, has allowed further development of closer relations between the three countries. In this respect, the UKHTC, which is already engaged with a number of international partners, complements the work of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. We will continue to co-operate with all international partners in taking forward the opportunity for joint working. The UK has achieved much. There is still much to do if we are to get the best possible balance to achieve an overall policy grounded on human rights standards. I was asked to comment on the position of overseas domestic workers. I intend to address that fully in correspondence with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. I was also asked in particular about enforcement activity. I can tell the House that we have carried out 69 successful convictions, but I am prepared in correspondence to provide some more background detail. I also wanted to pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the importance of dealing with internal trafficking. We are strengthening our guidance to social care agencies and local authorities and are working very carefully with the LGA. To pick up the point about children entering the UK, made in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, immigration officers at ports now have guidance on how to recognise those who show signs of vulnerability and distress. That is a very important aspect of the noble Lord’s five-point plan. I do not want to dwell on the issue of border security enforcement activity, but the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, made about immigration controls and ID cards are well understood. We think that the ID card system will help rather than hinder us with enforcement and that, in the long term, that investment will pay dividends. I should like to spend longer on this and give the House a fuller response from the Dispatch Box, but time is my enemy, so I should like to respond to some of the threads that I have not picked up in correspondence. I am grateful to all of those who have participated in the debate because the care and concern focused around it is very important, not least this year, when we celebrate the anniversary of the abolition of slavery. We need to do more on this; we recognise that.