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Human Trafficking

I thank hon. Members in all parts of the House who have supported my campaign to tackle the demand side in prostitution, because that demand is specifically directed at trafficking. I should also like to apologise to House if, because of the shortness of time when I moved new clause 2 to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, my remarks misled people about the numbers of women involved in trafficking. I direct hon. Members to the corrected Hansard on the matter. We need to start by asking what constitutes trafficking. I want to deal with that question, to ask why the most significant issue for Britain is trafficking for sexual exploitation and to argue that the Government must now do two things to reduce the impact such trafficking: first, reduce the demand for prostitution; and secondly, adopt a human rights approach to the victims of trafficking. What is trafficking? As the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) rightly pointed out, trafficking does not require the transport of people across borders. It does, however, require"““the use of coercion, force or threats, including abduction…the use of deceit or fraud…the abuse of authority or influence or the exercise of pressure””" and"““the offer of payment.””" Those oppressive, abusive means, which are quoted in all the international protocols and framework decisions, result in consequences for the victim. However, her consent is not relevant, because of the abuse of power that is inherent in those means. It is important to understand that point. I argue that all women in prostitution are the victims of trafficking, whether they have come from another country or this one, because of the route that they have taken into prostitution, which almost always involves coercion, enforced addiction to drugs and violence from their pimps or traffickers. It is important for us to understand that the experience of the prostituted woman is one of being trafficked, whether she was born in Moldova or Manchester. If we start from that understanding, we see how critical it is that the Government deal with demand. Traditionally, the Home Office has seen the pull factor in trafficking as its immigration policy. In fact, the pull factor is the demand for prostituted women. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's recognition that trafficking does not require transport across borders. However, I query his claims about the statistics for the number of women trafficked into countries that have legalised prostitution, because there is no doubt—nobody would dispute this—that there are more prostituted women in those countries. I dispute his figures, although there is an argument to be had about how many of them were brought across borders to be prostituted in those countries. However, there is no doubt that there are more women who are prostituted in countries that claim to regulate prostitution. Let us think about the ways in which the power over those trafficked women is exercised. Sometimes we are talking about women who are chained to radiators; more often we are talking about control in more subtle ways. As I have mentioned, control is frequently exercised through drug addiction, unpredictable violence, observing people or using witchdoctor techniques. A whole range of techniques can be used to keep women in a profession that puts their lives at risk. In every study, women in prostitution have been found to be 40 times more likely to die than other women of their age. In one US study, 50 per cent. of the prostituted women studied who had died had been murdered. If we are to tackle this, we need to establish a mechanism to reduce the number of women being murdered and to save huge numbers of women from violent exploitation. The first step is to reduce demand. Men who buy prostitutes become part of the chain of trafficking. Unlike people who buy trainers that have been made by exploited labour, the men who buy prostitutes are directly part of the chain. We should therefore take action to prevent them from becoming part of it. According to the advice of the UN special rapporteur, that should involve taking legislative action against the demand for prostitution. In her excellent report, the special rapporteur argues:"““Demand created by prostitute-users is not the only factor that drives the sex trafficking market. However, it is the factor which has received the least attention and creative thought in anti-trafficking initiatives. By and large, anti-trafficking policy has been directed towards detecting, preventing and punishing the conduct of traffickers, or towards stemming the supply””." If we were to reduce the demand in Britain, we would reduce the number of trafficked women. In addition, we can reduce the supply of women by helping them to exit prostitution. That is part of the human rights approach. We should invest much more effectively in exit schemes for women in prostitution, whether they have been trafficked from another country or trapped into prostitution by pimps in this country. It is a hard business for a woman to leave her pimp. One of the reasons that women and children are likely not only to be trafficked but to be re-trafficked is that they are vulnerable in the first place. It is hard for them to resist being re-trafficked, but if we have effective exit campaigns and support mechanisms that can help those trafficked and prostituted women, we can save many of them from the fate that too many of them face. It is striking that this is not only a human rights issue but a women's rights issue. As the UN special rapporteur points out in her report, many of the countries that supply women into prostitution, and supply the demand, have attitudes towards women that belittle and degrade them. That makes it more possible to see women as objects to be traded. If we create a culture—as the advertisements in our local newspapers do—that sees women as objects to be traded, more women will be trafficked. We know how to stop this, and I urge the Government to take urgent action to protect women from that trade.