WUNRN

http://www.wunrn.com

Direct Link to Report:

http://www.ecpat.org.uk/downloads/RightsHere_RightsNow.pdf

ECPAT UK & UNICEF

http://www.ecpat.org.uk/press_01.html

UK: New Report Shows Significant Gaps in Government Policy on Trafficked Children in UK

20 September 2007

A new report launched today by UNICEF UK and ECPAT UK shows that, despite recent moves made by the UK Government to demonstrate its commitment to tackling child trafficking, there are still significant gaps and inconsistencies in child protection standards for trafficked children in the UK compared to international standards.

The report, ‘Rights Here, Rights Now: Recommendations for Protecting Trafficked Children’, calls for a number of solutions, including providing each trafficked child with a guardian to uphold their best interests, ensuring data on child trafficking is monitored and reported to Parliament, and providing trafficked children with renewable residence permits to secure their legal status.

David Bull, Executive Director of UNICEF UK, said, "The trafficking of children is a global problem. Every year, 1.2 million children become victims of trafficking. They are secretly transported across borders and sold like commodities or trafficked within countries for the sole purpose of exploitation. Some are destined to work in the sex industry and others as domestic servants and in sweatshops."

"The UK Government has taken significant steps to improve its response to tackling human trafficking, which we welcome, but while progress has been made, much more remains to be done. We are calling on the UK Government to address the gaps in its child protection standards for trafficked children in the UK and back up its UK Action Plan with policy commitments and resources," Mr Bull added.

The report compares recent UK Government measures, such as the UK Action Plan, against two important international standards: the UNICEF Guidelines on the Protection of Child Victims of Trafficking and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. It identifies the gaps and inconsistencies in current legislation and government guidance, and proposes solutions that place children’s rights at the centre of the UK approach to safeguarding child victims of trafficking..

Christine Beddoe, Director of ECPAT UK, said: "Child trafficking is a crime that violates the basic rights of children, a crime which can – and does – destroy young lives. In 2007, the UK Government announced that 330 child victims of trafficking had been identified over an 18-month period; of these 183 went missing from social services care. Child trafficking is largely a hidden crime, so the true number of children trafficked into the UK is likely to be much larger. Even if trafficked children are identified, their care and protection is inconsistent, ad hoc and, in some regions, completely absent."

"This is why UNICEF UK and ECPAT UK are calling on the UK Government to do more to provide consistent care and support for child victims of trafficking. They remain a highly vulnerable group within our society and we have a responsibility to ensure that their needs are taken seriously."

Rights Here, Rights Now: Recommendations for Protecting Trafficked Children outlines a number of significant gaps in UK legislation and makes the following recommendations:

• The UK Reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that the UK will not be bound by the Convention in matters concerning children under immigration control, and therefore accepts no responsibility for upholding their rights. This is in contradiction to the CRC’s principles of non-discrimination and regard for the best interests of the child and also throws into doubt whether actions by the UK Government to tackle child trafficking will be in the best interests of the victims themselves, ensuring their care and protection.

Recommendation: the Government should lift its Reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on immigration and nationality matters so that the articles in the CRC, designed to protect children, apply to all children in the UK, including those who have been trafficked here or who are seeking asylum.

• The trafficked child’s best interests do not form the cornerstone of the UK Government’s approach to child trafficking.

Recommendation: the Government should set up a system of guardianship for child victims of trafficking to ensure that the best interests of the child is the guiding principle for the UK response to the care and protection for child victims of trafficking.

• The UK has no system of residence permits for child victims of trafficking so there is no alternative legal status for trafficked children to guarantee them the necessary time in the UK to recover from trauma, take legal action against traffickers, or access education and employment if they cannot go home.

Recommendation: the Government should introduce a system of renewable residence permits to secure a legal status for trafficked children and provide the necessary environment in which the child victims of trafficking can begin to make a physical and mental recovery.

• Without proper national data collection, monitoring and analysis, we will continue to be largely ignorant of the scale and scope of child trafficking in the UK.

Recommendation: the Government should establish a mechanism that ensures the systematic collection, monitoring and analyses of comprehensive data, and accountability to Parliament. This mechanism should perform the functions of a National Rapporteur on Trafficking, with a specific focus on children.

• The appointment of a National Child Trafficking Rapporteur – to independently monitor child trafficking and report annually.

To download a copy of the report please see:

Rights Here, Rights Now: Recommendations for Protecting Trafficked Children

================================================================
To leave the list, send your request by email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.