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Safeguarding Children (Sexual Exploitation)

No, my hon. Friend was right earlier when he said that we need a worldwide approach. That is why I said that even if we are good at finding the people who are promoting this stuff and posting it on the internet in this country, a lot of such activity is happening in Alaska, Florida, Russia and assorted Pacific islands that are not properly regulated. That is why I refer to the problem as an octopus. We can never clamp down on it altogether because the internet has become such a global phenomenon that it will not disappear overnight. [Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair] We must make it as difficult as possible for the perpetrators to access the practical means of placing images, accessing them and profiting from them. There has been some success in that. However, we will be successful only if the UK authorities co-operate with European authorities, which is why I mentioned the EFC, and with authorities overseas, not least in America. To a certain extent, Americans have a constitutional right to post obscene images on the internet, and that causes a serious problem. That is why some states have not proceeded against people as forcefully as they might have. I will end on the subject of trafficking. I know the problem well because Gatwick airport is in my Worthing constituency and in West Sussex local authority. Some years ago, I led a debate in this Chamber on the problem of girls being trafficked from western Africa, mostly from Nigeria and Sierra Leone. They were coming to Gatwick airport as unaccompanied asylum seekers under dubious and frightening circumstances. They had been taken from their parents, many of whom had been offered money. In some cases, the girls had been threatened with voodoo curses in frightening circumstances. When the girls turned up at Gatwick airport, they were taken into the care of West Sussex social services and were placed in foster care, which turned out not to be secure enough. Quite often, the pimps would appear in the middle of the night and abduct the girls under the threat that, if they did not comply, a voodoo curse would come down on them or that something terrible would happen to their parents. They would then be trafficked across the channel. Many ended up in northern Italy as prostitutes in places such as Milan. There was a television documentary on the issue. There was a concerted co-ordination of children's services and immigration authorities to clamp down on the problem. To an extent, it has worked, but I fear that it has merely shifted the problem to other places. Trafficking is an enormous problem. As my hon. Friend said, it is big business. The United Nations estimates that child trafficking generates $7 billion to $10 billion annually. Human trafficking is estimated to generate upwards of $30 billion annually. It is cited as the second most lucrative crime after the drugs trade. I think that it has leapfrogged the arms trade. Of all trafficking victims, 30 per cent. are below the age of 18. Child trafficking is increasing dramatically with between 1.2 million and 2 million children being trafficked each year. It is estimated that more than 10 million children are sexually exploited each year. That is a huge problem. I will conclude with the example of the World cup and sporting events, which the Minister may wish to comment on. I am sure that she is or soon will be involved in that area of inquiry. There is good evidence that child trafficking for the sex trade increases with international sporting events. In 2008, the sex trade in Switzerland increased enormously; it has been estimated that up to 3,000 women were sold into the sex trade and smuggled into the country. Of course the World cup next year will be in South Africa, where an estimated 30,000 children are enslaved in prostitution, many of them refugees from Zimbabwe. They come across a porous border, where a substantial part of the population of Zimbabwe live as refugees on very little money, finding a crust where they can. The hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) and I were in Mozambique two years ago, where we saw the same thing happening because of the situation in that part of Africa. There were huge numbers of refugees, and children were subjected to horrible exploitation. South Africa does not have comprehensive legislation to deal with human trafficking, and last year the US Department of State put South Africa on the tier 2 watch list for the fourth consecutive year, because of its failure to meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, with respect to prosecutions and so on. There exists a powerful lobby representing a minority of South Africans pushing for the decriminalisation of prostitution before 2010. That is very worrying, and in the interest of joined-up working and recognising that the trade is international, I am sure that the Minister, working with her colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office, will want to liaise with authorities in the sporting world and South Africa, to ensure that the disasters that happened in Switzerland will not be repeated in South Africa on what could, I fear, be a much bigger scale. There are big challenges ahead. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned private fostering. We shall continue to mention private fostering. I have mentioned it with reference to every measure on which I have led for the Opposition since the Adoption and Children Act 2002, and I still fail to see why the Government do not get it. Private fostering is in too many cases a cover for the exploitation of children who have been trafficked, who end up being abused sexually or in other ways. That has been found in several high-profile cases. I hope that the new Minister will take a fresh look at why private fostering has not been dealt with. A proper registration scheme could be introduced to deal with the situation effectively. We need to work more closely with the home countries of many of the children, not least in west Africa. We should work with children's services departments there to make sure that children do not leave in the hope of a better life or in fear of worse things happening to them and that circumstances will be suitable to enable them to stay with their families and be looked after properly. That is why international co-operation between social services and children's services is crucial. Barnardo's and other voluntary agencies do excellent work. Barnardo's is working on a report on the costs of sexual exploitation. It will expose the high costs to society of that exploitation and the serious consequences for the children and young people who are its victims. Recently, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell) rightly said:""We remain committed to tackling this appalling crime by making the UK a hostile environment for traffickers, disrupting their organisations and their activities and bringing as many as possible to justice."" I think that we would all say "Hear, hear" to that. I hope that the new Minister will be resolute in her intentions and ambitions to work with all the other agencies, countries and Departments that can tackle head on the cancer of the sexual exploitation and trafficking of vulnerable children.