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Human Trafficking

Yes, 15 people were found guilty of trafficking for sexual exploitation. A grand total of 17 people—14 men and three women—were found guilty of abusing children through prostitution and pornography. Those are absolutely ludicrous conviction rates. Certainly, under Operation Pentameter 2, many massage parlours and brothels were raided and a number of people detained, but as the hon. Gentleman rightly underlined, instead of obeying the injunction of the Bible,"““Suffer the little children to come unto me””," the reaction of Government officials was, ““Suffer the little children to be put into my hands and I'll boot them out of the country as fast as I can.”” Frankly, that shames Britain. Far from a freedom chain to get those sex slaves to freedom, we maintain their exploitation by dumping them back in their countries as quickly as we can, in which case they simply turn round to their traffickers and say, ““Get me back in to make some money.”” We need to consider the problem more broadly. The hon. Gentleman took an intervention about Sweden from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). Roger Matthews, professor of criminology at South Bank university, who has just published a very good book called ““Prostitution, Politics and Policy””, says:"““In Sweden, where the purchase of sexual services has been criminalised there has been a significant decrease in street prostitution and a lower level of trafficking than in neighbouring countries. Importantly, the recent law which makes the purchase of sexual services illegal appears to have affected public attitudes in general with the majority of teenage men seeing the purchase of sexual services as illegitimate.””" I would welcome a change in culture in Britain whereby the majority of teenage men—indeed, adult men—considered as illegitimate the purchase of sexual services, and until we have that change of culture, all our fine words and all our co-operation through the Parliaments of Europe will count for nothing. We can contrast Sweden with the state of Nevada, where prostituted women operate legally. Fifty-seven per cent of the students surveyed at the university of Nevada thought that it was impossible to rape a prostituted woman because, once money had been offered or paid, the woman had to do whatever the man wanted. That illustrates the cultural gap between those who argue for the legalisation of prostitution as we see it in Nevada, where people believe that a prostituted woman cannot be raped, and Sweden, where the men are confronted with their responsibility and there has been a cultural change regarding the purchase of sexual services and a significant decrease in trafficking. There is not one country in the world where prostitution is tolerated, legalised or semi-legalised that has not seen an increase in trafficked women. The hon. Member for Totnes will have to face the fact that if he wants to cut supply, he will have to consider the demand side. A number of us have raised this issue. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House did so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Slough—who might catch your eye in a few minutes, Mr. Martlew—proposed certain amendments. They fell because, as we know, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill was having its own difficulties in getting through all its stages in the two Houses of Parliament. I understand that, and my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have agreed to consider the matter. There have been visits to Sweden and other countries. We need to examine the issue because, until we name and shame the men, we will not do much, even if we do raid as many massage parlours and brothels as were raided under Operation Pentameter. When we raised the issue in the past and said that there were a large number of trafficked women in Britain, we were rubbished by the media. The hon. Member for Totnes was right to draw attention to the fact that the media tend to back away from the subject; they are nervous of it. I took part in an interesting debate last week with David Davis, our former colleague, who is now standing in a by-election; Mr. Henry Porter, who writes for The Observer; and Mr. David Aaronovitch, who writes for The Times. Mr. Aaronovitch was on my side, and Mr. Porter was on Mr. Davis's side. When these issues were raised by the Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough and others, Mr. Aaronivitch and Mr. Porter both argued powerfully that there should be no curb or limit on the right of men to buy whatever sex they wanted. I mentioned some statistics a moment ago, as listed by the Ministry of Justice, but it is interesting to note that there is no statistic for the offence of having sex with someone under the age of 18 without consent. Consent is difficult to define, but my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration said in the House in answer to me that to have paid-for sex with anyone under the age of 18 was rape. However, that statistic is not listed. As we know, the number of convictions for rape in Britain is pathetically and absurdly low, because we do not have people in the Crown Prosecution Service with specific responsibility for rape cases.