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Anti-Slavery Day Bill

My Lords, I am moving this Motion on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. It is a privilege and honour to have been asked to pilot this Bill through this House on behalf of my noble and learned friend and I want to explain why it is so important. I hope that the Bill will receive an unopposed Second Reading and that no amendments will be tabled, otherwise it will fail, as there will be insufficient time to receive Royal Assent before the general election. Let me make one point clear at the outset: this Bill will not result in a public holiday or any day off. That was never envisaged and is not now proposed. The Bill is about something entirely different. It is about focusing attention on and reminding the country each year of the fact that more than twice as many people are in bondage in the world today as there were in chains during the entire 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade. It will also remind us each year that, according to the European Commission, more than 100,000 of these exploited individuals are in Europe. The United Nations considers human trafficking to be the second most profitable criminal activity in the world, generating some $32 billion a year, second only to drug trafficking. Whereas in Wilberforce’s day slavery was visible and took place for the most part overseas, today it is invisible, underground and, sadly, even more widespread, both here and abroad. The Bill received all-party support in its passage through the Commons on 5 February. The Minister of State for Borders and Immigration at the Home Office congratulated the honourable Member for Totnes, Mr Anthony Steen, who proposed the Bill, on his work and commitment over many years and the important campaign that he and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking in both Houses have been leading, reminding us of the scale and nature of modern-day slavery. The shadow Minister, the honourable Member for Ashford, speaking for the Opposition, offered unconditional support for the idea, as did the honourable Member speaking from the Liberal Democrat Benches. Everyone cries out for statistics. Unfortunately, due to the very nature of the activity, there are no reliable figures. In a debate in the Commons on 20 January about human trafficking, the Member for Totnes indicated that the numbers of people trafficked in the UK for sexual exploitation might not be as great as at first imagined. However, subsequently the Metropolitan Police highlighted the fact that 90 per cent of women working in London’s 2,200 brothels were from abroad; it is believed that as many as 3,000 of these might have been trafficked from eastern European countries, west Africa and Asia. Whether it is one, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 women, it is clearly too many. Then there are hundreds of children from former Communist bloc countries involved in criminal activity, either on the streets or on the transport system. We know that a child who has been trained for a childhood to be spent in criminal activity can earn up to £100,000 a year for his trafficker by way of ATM thefts. There is also big money for the traffickers in cannabis cultivation. It is estimated that hundreds of children, mostly from Vietnam, are trafficked here as a final destination, possibly first travelling via other European countries, and subjected to debt bondage by organised crime gangs. The police believe that there are over 2,000 cannabis factories in the UK, with more than 300 in London alone, each netting between £100,000 and £200,000 annually. While some see cannabis cultivation by Vietnamese boys more as an illegal immigration issue than as human trafficking, most of these victims are misled, deceived and put to work in fear of their safety and in what can only be unwholesome circumstances. We believe that those trafficked for forced labour to pay off their debts work across a range of sectors, including agriculture, construction and the hospitality industries. We know little of the scale of this, but clearly the Chinese cockle picker tragedy some years ago reminds us of this problem. What we know from NGOs is that victims emerge each week around the UK and are not confined to our major cities. The Dutch have similar problems. They were among the first in western Europe to recognise human trafficking problems and introduced as a result far-reaching legislation, including the widespread training of police and border guards. Yet even they have had to admit that trafficking continues there and is growing. The Poppy Project, to which the Government have given £5.8 million since 2003, provides accommodation for women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude. It confirms that its accommodation is more often than not oversubscribed. Victims need better protection and more consistent after-care support. When victims are discovered, they and their families back home are at risk, even more so if the victim is willing to give evidence against their trafficker. I pay tribute to ECPAT UK, a coalition working for the protection of children’s rights, including Anti-Slavery International, the Jubilee Campaign, the NSPCC, Save the Children UK, the Children’s Society, UNICEF UK and World Vision UK. This organisation is doing excellent, effective work in championing children’s rights. Additionally, it acts as adviser to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Trafficking of Women and Children, of which my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, are officers. I pay tribute also to the NGO Kalayaan for its sterling work with victims of domestic slavery, particularly those who have been exploited by embassy officials. Your Lordships will recall its work in bringing to our attention cases that helped us to ensure that forced labour and domestic servitude were criminalised through the Coroners and Justice Act. An annual anti-slavery day will send out a message each year that this country does not welcome traffickers and is hostile to all those who seek brutally to exploit others for personal gain. It will raise awareness and concentrate attention on the issues. Although there are laws to prosecute perpetrators of human trafficking and to assist and protect victims of human trafficking, there must be greater awareness of issues surrounding this phenomenon among those people who are most likely to come into contact with victims—not just public officials, doctors, nurses, social and church workers, but ordinary members of the public, such as students, youth workers and people employed in business. Awareness is a prerequisite for eliminating human trafficking, because the techniques that traffickers use to keep their victims enslaved are changing with modern technology, making it more difficult for victims to come forward. Part of this awareness raising will also usefully enable organisations to point out to consumers the kinds of questions that they can ask so that they do not inadvertently collude in contemporary forms of enslavement. As some of your Lordships will know, I have brought together parliamentarians and colleagues from the fashion industry to see how we can help to address the unacceptable exploitation of mainly women and children, here and overseas, for our fashion market. For example, in Uzbekistan, many young children are effectively enslaved, working all day, missing school and inhaling pesticides, all to produce cotton goods for us to buy. I believe that most people, given the choice, would not want that to happen, but how many people know that these abuses are taking place? In this House and the other place, we have access to this disturbing knowledge. We can find out quite easily that in big cities, in the suburbs and in rural idylls these appalling practices are taking place. Those working in public services and NGOs also have a keen sense of what is happening, but most members of the public do not. I hope that I have explained to the House in sufficient detail why an annual anti-slavery day represents a really effective mechanism for provoking debate and spurring people into action. Your Lordships will note that there is no annual specific day designated by the Bill. The actual day would be decided by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Our preference would be for 11 January each year, which is the same day as that designated by the US Senate in 2007 for the United States. That would also fit into our academic terms and allow schools in particular to incorporate the issue of human trafficking into their curriculum and to educate students accordingly through teaching about citizenship and so on. Various events could be organised, as they are throughout the US, including public debates, press conferences, TV news items, film screenings and local authority and church events. Modern-day slavery, whether for sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic slavery or child trafficking, is on the increase and, as a result, the mission of campaigners such as Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Mary Prince, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and, of course, William Wilberforce to end the abominable trade remains unfulfilled. Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, said of this proposal: ""A day for national reflection in parliament, government, business and civil society on progress achieved and measures needed to end the continued contemporary enslavement of over 12 million people in the world would be a positive measure to help marshal resources necessary to see the end of the struggle"." An annual anti-slavery day would not just remind us of the extent and malevolence of this repulsive trade here and overseas, but, more importantly, draw attention to the urgent need about what action needs to be taken and what still needs to be done. I beg to move.