WUNRN
Please see 2 PARTS of this
WUNRN Release on Child Trafficking in UK.
Part 2: "A new report
launched 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."
________________________________________________________________________
UK: Hundreds of Girls Rescued
from Traffickers in Britain are Snatched Back and Forced Into Prostitution
4th January 2008
Hundreds
of children rescued from traffickers are being snatched back and forced into
prostitution, officials have warned.
A United Nations survey found that out of 330 youngsters saved from criminal gangs in the UK, well over half subsequently went missing from local authority care.
The fear is they were followed and recaptured by their traffickers.
Twisted fate: children rescued from people-traffickers in the UK are being 'snatched back and forced into prostitution'
The
figures were highlighted by the Conservatives yesterday as they demanded
tougher Government action to deal with the horrors of people-trafficking - an
industry worth an estimated £5billion a year.
In Britain up to 25,000 foreign women and girls are trapped in a modern form of slavery - smuggled into the country, threatened with violence and forced to work as prostitutes.
Most come from poor countries in search of a better life but find themselves trapped by their debts to gangs and unable to seek protection because they are illegal immigrants.
One prostitute can make more than £100,000 a year profit for her "pimp".
Tory critics said the issue was no longer confined to major cities but was being seen in towns and villages.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "Two hundred years after we abolished the slave trade it is a shame on our country that we are not treating this problem more seriously."
He said young teenagers were being turned away from specialist safe house projects for trafficking victims because their age meant they should be in council care.
Local authorities, however, were not well enough equipped to protect the children and many became easy prey for trafficking gangs hunting them down.
Mr Davis said: "The idea of a girl of 15 from Estonia going to one of these centres and being turned away just makes me want to cry."
He said an effective border police force with full enforcement powers would be well placed to lead the hunt for trafficking victims and gangs.
People-trafficking was made a specific criminal offence in 2003. But opposition critics claim far too few prosecutions are being brought given the massive scale of the problem, with just 16 cases last year.
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Direct Link to Report: http://www.ecpat.org.uk/downloads/RightsHere_RightsNow.pdf
http://www.ecpat.org.uk/press_03.html
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.
Rights Here, Rights Now: Recommendations for Protecting Trafficked Children
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