---

Queen’s Speech

My Lords, I will speak on the subject of human trafficking, which causes a great deal of ill health. Those who are trafficked are deprived of their freedom and, often, of the medical attention that they desperately need for the diseases that they inevitably have forced on them. It was therefore reassuring to see reference in the Queen’s Speech to a Bill that will be brought forward, "““to increase the effectiveness and public accountability of policing, to reduce crime and disorder””," and to include measures to reduce human trafficking. Human trafficking is a scourge that affects every country worldwide and may produce revenues of as much as $42 billion, which is equal to those of Microsoft and twice those of Coca-Cola. Human trafficking involves the dislocation of men, women and children by deception or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. The International Labour Organisation says that worldwide more than 12 million men, women and children are in forced labour at any given time and, of those, 2.4 million have been trafficked. UNICEF believes that throughout the world a child is being trafficked every 30 seconds. Approximately 80 per cent of those trafficked are women and girls and the majority come from the poorest countries. The British parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights considers human trafficking to be, "““one of the most serious human rights issues in the modern world””." It outlines varying forms of enslavement, including children being drugged and forced to fight as soldiers, men bonded or chained in labour on mines and farms, women enslaved in quarries and households, women and girls trapped in the sex trade and boys forced to fish in dangerous waters. Save the Children estimates that there are 5,000 children in prostitution in the UK, nearly all of whom have been trafficked. Anna’s story is especially harrowing. Her nightmare began in eastern Europe when her father sold her into the sex trade when she was aged 18. Alone, frightened and very vulnerable, she was shipped to Italy, where she was kept prisoner for seven months. From there she was smuggled into the UK in a lorry and then transported to London. Her life became a living hell as she became a sex slave and was required to service 30 to 40 clients every day for five agonising years. She badly wanted to plead with her clients for help, but her traffickers threatened to kill her if ever she told anyone. To show Anna that they were serious, they beat her without mercy, breaking her arm, and then raped her repeatedly. Surely some of the clients must have sensed that she was there under duress—but they clearly did not care. Finally, Anna escaped, but she will never escape the haunting memories or the physical and emotional scars, which she will carry for ever. It is reckoned that 50 per cent of this trade is fuelled by the demand created through adverts in our local newspapers. If the newspapers cannot put their houses in order, surely carefully crafted legislation should be put in place to outlaw such advertisements. Can the Minister comment on this suggestion? I quote from the story of another young woman. She said: "““Two years ago everything changed. I was trafficked by a man who forced me to work on the streets, beating me up, force feeding me and turning me into someone with no mind of my own. I had become like a frightened rabbit. I was terrified that he would kill me. Death often felt like my only way to escape. But I survived; I escaped and am now working for the campaign entitled Stop the Traffik. Trafficking isn’t a distant crime. It’s right here. It’s on your doorstep””." Another tragedy concerns a boy of 12 called Masud. His parents were tricked into thinking that their son would have a better life and greater opportunities if he were taken out of his home country of Bangladesh. He was sold to the fastest-growing industry in the world and trafficked to the United Kingdom. He ended up in an Indian restaurant in the south-west of England. He was not allowed to attend school and his life was controlled by the restaurant owners, who forced him to work and then sleep in a small storeroom between the chutney and bags of onions. After 16 years he managed to escape with the help of the organisation Stop the Traffik. He finally managed to obtain a passport, which enabled him to be reunited with his family, free from the traffickers and the cycle of forced labour that had held him captive for so many years. Then there was the gang of human traffickers, brothel keepers and pimps who received substantial jail terms over the ordeal of a teenage girl tricked into travelling to the UK for sexual slavery. Their Slovakian victim had cried in court as she described spending nearly a year and a half working in prostitution after being lured to Britain at the age of 16 with the promise of a job in a pub. She was sold from owner to owner, raped, beaten and threatened. Six men received sentences of up to 14 years each for what the judge called a ““terrible story of betrayal””. The men were jailed for a total of 53 years for trafficking the Slovakian teenager into the UK. The judge said that the teenager, unable to speak English and in a strange country with no friends, would have been in terrible fear of what would happen if she did not co-operate. Prostitution is on the increase, which may be one reason for the increase in trafficking. A recent estimate suggested that one in 10 men uses women in prostitution. I gave a lecture on this subject in Atlanta, Georgia, at the end of which I was asked whether I had any suggestions as to how these men’s lives could be changed. The people in Atlanta had tried everything—bringing in laws and trying to persuade or shame the men—but nothing worked. I was not quite sure what to say; this was a secular audience. Then I remembered the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths and Lord Roberts of Llandudno—great Methodist ministers. I remembered that John and Charles Wesley had visited Atlanta, Georgia and had had a profound influence on the activities of the people there. I also remembered what a significant change they had produced in this country. People’s behaviour changed dramatically, turning a violent and unpleasant society into a rather wholesome and attractive land. So I left the people at the lecture pondering whether the same thing could happen today. A reduction in prostitution should lead to a reduction in trafficking. A country’s response to prostitution has a direct effect, first, on the amount of trafficking and, secondly, on where the women practise. In the UK, they are mainly indoors but in Holland, Germany and Italy they are usually out on the streets. In Australia and Holland, the introduction of legislation has not succeeded in bringing prostitution within a safe, regulated environment because unregulated prostitution has persisted and unfortunately those countries have become more attractive for trafficking. However, Amsterdam is taking firm action and is now closing significant portions of the red light district in an attempt to tackle organised crime and human trafficking. Following an initiative in the United States, the United Kingdom police have tried to reduce trafficking by a different approach to those caught soliciting. They are told that there will be no prosecution on condition that they attend a course of instruction on the abusive nature of prostitution. Alternatively, they can opt to have a summons delivered to their home, which their wife will see. Those who attended this change course came to understand how degrading and abusive prostitution is for the victim. Its effect was a reoffending rate of less than 2 per cent—19 out of 1,400 reoffended. There have been some encouraging developments in countries such as Sweden, which was the first to criminalise the demand side of prostitution. Those who buy sex are prosecuted rather than those who sell it. The Swedish Government reasoned that prostitution reproduces gender inequality and they wished to promote equality of men and women and eradicate gender inequality. The Government’s ultimate aim is to abolish prostitution altogether. The effect in Sweden is that human trafficking has been significantly reduced. Norway has now taken this approach as well. In London, 81 per cent of women in brothels are from abroad and it is highly likely that they have been trafficked, which means that most of the activity in these brothels constitutes rape. The Home Office recently piloted a poster campaign with a picture of a brothel and a slogan underneath: "““Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist””." Perhaps the Minister can tell us how that excellent campaign is faring. One may debate whether criminalising prostitution is an infringement on the civil liberties of women in voluntary prostitution and their would-be clients, but there should be no debate at all about those who are not volunteers but are forced into prostitution. In the debate on the Queen’s Speech, the Leader of the House of Commons and Minister for Women and Equality said that the Government’s proposal to criminalise men who pay for sex with trafficked women was needed because the sex industry had been taken over by serious and organised crime. Doubts have been expressed by a senior police officer, who said that the new law would be difficult to enforce, but is that a good enough reason for allowing the bias against women to persist, as it has done for thousands of years? The bias against women needs to be addressed and the Government’s attempt to deal with it is to be welcomed. It will help to reduce human trafficking, which must be eliminated.