Protection of Freedoms Bill
Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts(14 years ago)
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“Legal advocate for child victim of human trafficking
(1) It shall be a requirement that each child who might have been the victim of a human trafficking offence shall have a legal advocate appointed to represent the best interests of that child if the person who has parental responsibility fulfils any of the conditions set out in subsection (3).
(2) The legal advocate shall have the following responsibilities—
(a) to advocate that all decisions taken are in the child’s best interest;(b) to advocate for the child to receive appropriate care, accommodation, medical treatment, including psychological assistance, education, translation and interpretation services;(c) to advocate for the child’s access to legal and other representation where necessary;(d) to consult with, advise and keep the child victim informed of legal rights;(e) to contribute to identification of a plan to safeguard and promote the long-term welfare of the child based on an individual assessment of that child’s best interests;(f) to keep the child informed of all relevant immigration, criminal or compensation proceedings;(g) to provide a link between the child and various organisations which may provide services to the child;(h) to assist in establishing contact with the child’s family, where the child so wishes and it is in the child’s best interests;(i) to attend all police interviews with the child; and(j) to accompany the child whenever the child moves to new accommodation.(3) Subsection (1) applies if the person who has parental responsibility for the child—
(a) is suspected of taking part in a human trafficking offence;(b) has another conflict of interest with the child;(c) is not in contact with the child; or(d) is in a country outside the United Kingdom.(4) In subsection (1), a legal advocate may be—
(a) an employee of a statutory body; (b) an employee of a recognised charitable organisation; or(c) a volunteer for a recognised charitable organisation.(5) Where a legal advocate is appointed under subsection (1), it shall be a requirement that any relevant agency recognises the authority of the legal advocate in relation to the child.
(6) In subsection (5), a “relevant agency” means a person or organisation which—
(a) provides services to the child; or(b) the child needs access to in relation to being a victim of a human trafficking offence.(7) The Secretary of State—
(a) shall by order set out the arrangements for the appointment of a legal advocate;(b) may make rules about the training courses to be completed before a person may exercise functions as a legal advocate; and(c) shall by order designate organisations as a “recognised charitable organisation” for the purpose of this section.(8) In this section—
“human trafficking offence” means an offence under section 59A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (trafficking people for sexual exploitation) or an offence under section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 (trafficking people for labour and other exploitation); and
“parental responsibility” has the same meaning as section 3 of the Children Act 1989.”
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, Amendment 57A is in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. These names demonstrate the widespread support across the House for what I believe is a very important amendment.
On 25 November last year, during a debate on my trafficking Bill, one subject came up again and again: the plight of rescued trafficked children in the United Kingdom. Although my Bill is wide-ranging and touches on many different aspects of tackling trafficking, it was to this subject that speaker after speaker chose to return. At the very heart of the concern is the fact that the reports of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre demonstrate that between 2007 and February 2010, out of 942 trafficked children who were rescued in the United Kingdom, a staggering 301—one-third of the children—were lost. I understand and warmly welcome the fact that in the past year the loss rate fell to 18 per cent, but this is still a completely unacceptable situation.
It brings to mind the small boy called Bao, who comes from Vietnam. When Bao’s mother fell ill, the family needed to take a loan out to cover the cost of her healthcare. In return, Bao was told that he needed to come to the United Kingdom to work off the loan. Your Lordships can predict what happened on his arrival. Bao was initially forced to work as a domestic servant but later was moved to a cannabis factory, where he cultivated plants throughout the day and night.
After a police raid, Bao was arrested and prosecuted for the offences that he had committed while under coercion from his traffickers. Although he was eventually identified as a victim of trafficking, he remained very fearful of those who had exploited him. Desperate to return to his family, Bao was devastated to learn about the threats his family were receiving in his home country shortly after his rescue. As a result, he became very frightened for their safety and disappeared from local authority care. Bao remains missing and is presumed to be back in the hands of his traffickers.
This is the precise situation that Amendment 57A seeks to address. The reality of trafficked children is that they are extremely vulnerable and need appropriate and specialist support once rescued from their situation of exploitation. It is an incredibly sad reflection on our priorities as a nation that we should take such poor care of these extremely vulnerable children. First, they are kidnapped or lured under false pretences and trafficked to the United Kingdom, a foreign country with a foreign language, usually far away from their families. Then they are rescued and all too often while in local authority care they are lost, probably retrafficked. I find it hard to conceive that we are not doing more to help these children.
It is important to be clear that Amendment 57A is not just about trying not to lose rescued trafficked children but about ensuring that they receive proper levels of care when they are not lost. In providing a constant reference point, the provision of a legal advocate will help address the distressing experience of these rescued children, who are passed from official to official, denied any sense of continuity and required to go back to the beginning and recount their painful story again and again. There are also accounts of children turning up to court and discovering that their social worker is not present. The provision of a legal advocate will mean that even if a social worker is not able to attend court, the child need not be alone.
Of course, I am aware that the Government are concerned about this issue. However, they contend that the Children Act 1989 provides all the legal powers that are necessary to address this problem adequately. In the first instance, they point out that the Children Act places on local authorities a general obligation to protect the welfare of all children within their boundaries. The Act then makes provision for three relevant roles that can be called upon to assist a local authority as it seeks to rise to this challenge.
First, Section 26 of the Children Act makes provision for assistance in the form of advocacy services for a child who makes or intends to make representations to a local authority either under their case review or on any issue in relation to their care by a local authority. Secondly, Section 23ZB requires local authorities to appoint “an independent person” who should,
“visit, befriend and advise the child”,
if they think it is in the child’s best interests. Thirdly, Section 25A requires local authorities to appoint an “independent reviewing officer” for each child in their care. These responsibilities are defined by Section 25B as providing independent oversight, including monitoring the performance of the local authority in respect of each child’s case.
However, there are at least two problems with the Government’s suggestion that the provisions of the Children Act will suffice. First, the loss of 32 per cent of trafficked children occurring in the context of the Children Act and its provisions hardly suggests that the Act is fit for the purpose of protecting trafficked children. We would all recognise that their needs were not at the front of our minds in 1989 when the Act became law. Most of us had either never heard of the term “human trafficking” or were not aware of exactly what it meant.
Secondly, while the provisions of the 1989 Act are very welcome, they fall a long way short of the definition of the recommended best practice in the care of rescued child trafficking victims; namely, the provision of a child trafficking guardian. A trafficking guardian is someone who is appointed as soon as the child is identified as a victim of trafficking with the intention that they should remain in place during the child’s case and until a long-term solution is found that is in the child’s best interests. The guardian would accompany the child to all meetings with officials, be they in law courts, regarding education or with social services, where crucially they would be recognised and would have the right to advocate on the child’s behalf.
There has been considerable confusion about the term guardian in the UK, partly because in our law the word “guardian” is generally used in the parental sense of parent or guardian, who is someone quite different. For that reason, I have given the role a different name in my amendment—namely, “legal advocate”. However, to make what we are talking about really clear, the UNICEF guidelines on a child trafficking guardian are the basis of subsection (2) of the new clause proposed under Amendment 57A. There could then be no confusion about what is proposed.
When we look at the internationally accepted definition of a guardian for a trafficked child, the shortcomings of the current Children Act provision become all too obvious. I will set them out briefly. First, Section 26 advocates do not comply with the definition of a trafficking guardian because they advocate on the child’s behalf only in relation to local authority case reviews and are not appointed from the moment a child is identified as a victim of trafficking but only if the child determines that they would like to avail themselves of their services, which raises an interesting question.
Last week, I spoke to a solicitor who pointed out that in making provisions for a Section 26 advocate, who crucially can be commissioned only if the child requests it, the Children Act assumes that the child in question is mature enough—probably 10 years old or more. The solicitor wanted to know how this would help the young trafficked children who had recently come to their attention: one was aged four months; one was one year old; and another was two years old. There are also “independent visitors” but they are not given the right to advocate on behalf of a child in all their engagement with the state. Instead, their role seems to be more of a befriending and advice service to the child in question.
Finally, there is the independent reviewing officer but they do not appear to accompany the children anywhere and are not required to have direct contact with the child between their reviews. I do not believe that these positions adequately rise to the contemporary challenge of human trafficking. It is very clear to me that, even viewed collectively, these roles do not provide anything comparable to what is understood today as a child trafficking guardian. I am delighted that the Children Act has been amended over the past 20 years to make provision for the advocate, the independent visitor and the independent reviewing officer. But that fact shows that the law changes and adapts to new best practice, as I am advocating that it should today.
Over the past several years, trafficking has become a lucrative business in the United Kingdom. Traffickers are clever and opportunistic, and stop at nothing when there is profit to be made. I think of a two year-old called Karolek, who along with her mother was brought to the United Kingdom from eastern Europe and used as a means through which fraudulent benefits could be claimed. Both Karolek and her mother were rescued but her mother is now being groomed for sexual exploitation and is in no place to provide the best care for her child, leaving Karolek in a very vulnerable position. Had Karolek been given a legal advocate, the vulnerability of her situation would have been identified by someone with appropriate authority and action taken.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I hope that the House will now allow me to respond to the long debate that we have had on this subject. There are a few points that I want to make.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, was rather suspicious that I might be trying to kick this into the long grass—she put that suggestion forward. I assure her that I have some experience of kicking things into the long grass, but that works only when all parties agree that something should go into the long grass and stay there. If I may continue with the analogy, it was her noble friend Lady Royall who asked that I keep her informed of progress while giving me the assurance that my noble friend Lord McColl would be dogged in his pursuit of me to ensure that things progressed. When someone like my noble friend is dogged in his pursuit, there is no grass long enough for these matters. This issue will not go into the long grass, as I said; I want this to go to the Children’s Commissioner for her to give her views and come forward with practical ideas.
On that point, I would like to come back to my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who herself was rather suspicious when I used the expression “practical arrangements”. I have no shame whatever in using those words because they are exactly what we want. We want to ensure that we are making progress in this area, rather than merely passing amendments so that we feel good about passing amendments.
I do not want to go into the amendment of my noble friend Lord McColl at this stage because I do not think it quite achieves what it sets out to do and there might be better ways of doing it. I repeat what I said to him earlier today in a private conversation: we have made some progress in this area. Noble Lords have been quoting the figure of some 32 per cent of children still being lost, but we have had considerable progress over the past few years. The 32 per cent figure was an average over the past four or five years, but actually it has dropped from a quite horrifying 55 per cent to 18 per cent, which is an equally horrifying figure but that at least is progress in the right direction. I pay tribute to some local authorities, and there are not many good ones, that have been performing their duties very well. I also pay tribute, as did my noble friend Lord Attlee in the recent debate moved by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, to the work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which I visited recently. Progress is being made in this area and we should not think that primary legislation or whatever—there will be opportunities for both primary and secondary legislation—is necessarily the only solution.
At this stage I would like to say that we have made progress, I have listened to everything that has been said and the Children’s Commissioner will take note of all that has been said in this debate. I look forward to progress and to keeping the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, informed about it. I will also look over my shoulder for the dogged pursuit of my noble friend Lord McColl, who will see to it that I do my utmost to ensure that progress is made in this respect. I hope that with those assurances my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I am particularly grateful to my co-signatories, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord Carlile. I am also grateful to the Minister for the assurances and the concession that he has given, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Protection of Freedoms Bill
Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government are moving swiftly to give effect to certain requirements in the EU directive on human trafficking. The Minister was kind enough to write to me about this matter further to my own trafficking Bill, which, incidentally, goes a little further than the EU directive in a number of key respects and had its Second Reading in November last year.
As the Minister has stated, Britain is already largely compliant with the directive, although the areas of our non-compliance certainly make opting in very worth while, and I am glad that we have done so. However, having carefully examined the directive clause by clause and the current level of UK compliance, I have to say that I think there is a need for legal changes in other areas above and beyond those accommodated by the Minister’s amendments.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, regrets that she had to leave this session early but she will propose appropriate amendments next week during the passage of the LASPO Bill. Of course, I understand that the Government may well address all these other areas through secondary legislation and operational matters, as the Minister has said. However, having looked at the other areas of non-compliance, I am rather struggling to see how they can all be adequately addressed in this way. I will not try to list all the relevant areas now, but they include, for instance, implementing Article 2.3 on the definition of exploitation and Article 2.4 on the legal definition of consent for adults. Then there are provisions in Articles 12.4, 15.3 to 15.5 and others to ensure witness protection during criminal investigation and proceedings. Would the Minister be good enough to write to me outlining in some detail the areas where he intends to introduce secondary legislation and operational measures to achieve complete compliance, and would he place a copy of the letter in the Library?
As well as questions about what the amendments do not address, I also have a question about the drafting of the new clauses. Specifically, it is not clear to me whether the requirement under the EU directive for businesses as well as individuals falls within the scope of trafficking legislation and is upheld by the proposed changes. I would be grateful if the Minister could address that concern in his response.
Finally, while the Government are taking steps today to become compliant with the directive, I am concerned that they may be taking steps elsewhere that will make us non-compliant. The provision of legal representation for victims of trafficking, including for claiming compensation, is necessary if we are to be compliant with Articles 12.2 and 15.2 of the directive. However, civil legal aid for claiming compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is specifically excluded under Schedule 1, part 2, paragraph 16 of the legal aid Bill that is currently being considered in Committee. As it stands, unless there is some other mechanism that the Government have in place for trafficking victims to claim compensation, I think that they may be in breach of the EU directive on this point. I would be grateful to the Minister if he could allay my concerns.
I conclude by welcoming again the fact that the Government are taking steps today to help Britain become compliant with the directive. For the reasons I have explained, however, their actions also prompt a good many questions, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer. I say in closing that I very much hope that my own trafficking Bill will soon be granted its Committee stage so that we can debate in greater detail its key provisions, which go beyond the directive.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the amendments and for the letter that he wrote to noble Lords earlier this week. We welcome the government amendments as far as they go. Like the Minister, I commend the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for his tireless and extraordinary efforts on this important issue and the fact that he introduced his Private Member’s Bill, which I believe paved the way for the amendments before us today. As the noble Lord said, his Bill goes further than the EU directive and I, too, look forward to seeing it in Committee in the near future.
These amendments represent a clear admission by the Government that they were wrong in their initial decision to opt out of the EU directive on human trafficking. The claims made at the time by the Prime Minister about the EU directive were ill informed at best when he said,
“does not go any further than the law that we have already passed”.—[ Official Report, Commons, 15/9/10; col. 873.]
As the Minister explained, the government amendments serve to implement Article 9 of the directive, which requires member states to establish extraterritorial jurisdiction where the offender is one of their own nationals and grants member states discretion over the establishment of jurisdiction over non-nationals, where any part of the offence was committed in a member state’s territory or the victim is a national. We welcome the Government’s amendments to introduce extraterritorial jurisdiction over UK nationals who traffic or facilitate the trafficking of people. We also welcome the introduction of jurisdiction over non-UK nationals who commit or facilitate trafficking from within the UK. However, I ask the Minister to confirm three things about the jurisdiction extensions. First, will the extension of the UK’s jurisdiction also apply to those cases where the offence is committed for the benefit of a legal person established in the UK even if no trafficking activities took place in the UK? Secondly, will it extend to offences where the victim is a national or resident of the UK? Thirdly, will the amendments also extend the same extraterritorial jurisdictions over legal persons of the UK operating overseas or benefiting from trafficking perpetrated overseas as required by Article 5 of the directive?
The Government’s amendments to extend the UK’s jurisdiction to cases of trafficking connected with but not perpetrated in the UK is a welcome move and brings us closer to compliance with the EU directive. However, we are deeply concerned that the Government have sought to act in a way that presents us with an absolute bare minimum compliance and that without further primary legislation the UK could fall short of compliance. In particular, the government amendments do nothing to address the disappearance from the system of child victims of trafficking in this country. With 32 per cent of identified child victims of trafficking having gone missing from care between 2007 and February 2010, it would seem clear that the present system of care for child victims is not working. Charities such as CARE and Ecpat UK, which campaign to end child prostitution and pornography and trafficking of children for sexual purposes cite lack of continuity in care and children being passed from one professional to the next as a key reason for the disappearance of these children and have called for the introduction of a system of guardians to address the highly specific needs and risks that child victims of trafficking are exposed to. Articles 12 and 13 of the directive make it clear that signatories must provide, “assistance, support and protection” for child victims of trafficking and ensure that the,
“necessary assistance and support measures are provided for child victims of trafficking, taking account of their individual needs and concerns”.
I ask the Minister how the Government consider the UK currently complies with Articles 12 and 13 and, in particular, how present arrangements for the care of child victims of trafficking are uniquely tailored to the particular needs and vulnerabilities of these children, as required by Article 13. I also ask the Minister how many child victims of trafficking are known to have gone missing from care in the last year, and whether he thinks that the present and proposed arrangements go far enough to protect against disappearance.
There are other areas, too, where action is required in order to bring the UK into compliance with the directives that are not touched upon by these amendments. Article 16 of the directive requires that the UK establish a national rapporteur to independently monitor implementation of the directive. The Government have stated that they believe that the current Joint Ministerial Committee should be sufficient for this purpose. However, I would ask the Minister how the committee can operate independently of government and how regularly it publicly reports.
Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl pointed out, the directive requires that adequate provision is made for access to legal counselling and representation for victims of trafficking under Article 10. I am specifically concerned about how cuts to the legal aid budget currently being considered in the LASPO Bill will affect such provision to some of the most vulnerable individuals. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me what measures the Government are taking to ensure that the UK is compliant with this article.
In a debate in this House the Minister stated his view that:
“The remainder of the directive can be implemented in full through secondary legislation and through various operational measures and operational routes”.—[Official Report, 25/11/11; col. 1281.].
I am somewhat sceptical about whether secondary legislation can deliver many of the changes necessary to bring this country into compliance with the directive and, crucially, whether it can provide better protection for the hundreds of vulnerable trafficked children who have gone missing from the system. I note the request from the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for further information about the secondary legislation envisaged and I look forward to receiving that information from the Minister.
I welcome the amendments brought forward today and I look forward to hearing from the Minister what additional measures the Government will be introducing to fully implement this important directive.
Human Trafficking (Further Provisions and Support for Victims) Bill [HL]
Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord McColl of Dulwich
That the Bill be read a second time.
Relevant documents: 21st Report from the Delegated Powers Committee
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who support the Bill, and the charitable sector, which does so much to combat human trafficking, especially organisations such as ECPAT, Care and the International Organisation for Migration.
First, I wish to consider some key trafficking stories and then key trafficking statistics. I will then set out the rationale for my Bill and provide an overview of some of the key clauses. I was asked to keep to six minutes just a few minutes ago but there is no way that I can. I begin by sharing with noble Lords what has for me been the most salutary part of preparing for this Bill—not the reading of statistics but meeting the victims of trafficking.
I recently had the privilege of meeting Sophie, a young woman who experienced first hand the horrors of modern-day slavery. Sophie’s story is one that may surprise noble Lords, as her testimony demonstrates that trafficking is no respecter of persons. Sophie is a British woman who, at 24, was asked to accompany her boyfriend on a trip to Italy. Wooed by the enticing prospect of a holiday abroad, Sophie had no idea that what awaited her was a hellish situation. Her so-called boyfriend in fact lured her to Italy to pimp her out and make money to pay off his drug debts. Forced to service men in the back of a rundown petrol station, Sophie was physically, emotionally and psychologically abused by her trafficker. His threats terrorised her and meant that she feared leaving as she knew that his gang network was fully capable of tracking down not only her but her family members in the United Kingdom.
Then I think of Grace, a young woman who, since being rescued from her trafficking situation, is unable to sleep in her bed as a result of the memories she associates with her past sexual exploitation. Instead, she sleeps on her couch night after night, terrified of the thought of a bed. I also remember Anna, an adult woman who is receiving aftercare support in the United Kingdom but still suffers from night terrors because of the flashbacks she experiences, which are a constant reminder of the horror she endured. Then there is Maria, a young woman who was forced to undergo four abortions as a result of her exploitation in a brothel. Noble Lords can imagine the emotional scars with which she is living. I could go on but time is limited. Meeting the victims of trafficking is a deeply sobering experience which highlights the inadequacies of the current legislative and policy framework in place in the United Kingdom. My Bill seeks to address some of these shortfalls.
I turn from specific stories to the statistics. The number of trafficking victims here in the UK is horrifying. Between April 2009 and March 2011, the UK Human Trafficking Centre, which is the government body responsible for formal identification of trafficking victims, recorded 1,481 referrals via the national referral mechanism. These referrals included 88 nationalities. Of the 1,481 referrals, 72 per cent were female and 26 per cent were children. The actual number of victims is presumed to be much higher by front-line organisations such as the Poppy Project and ECPAT, which have evidence that many victims avoid the national referral mechanism because of their underlying fear of deportation if their immigration status becomes known to the Government. This fear is precisely what the traffickers use to control their victims.
This Bill seeks to address the challenge of trafficking primarily through the provision of better care for the victims of trafficking. I shall address some of the key clauses, including those pertaining to legal advocates for child victims of trafficking, compensation, and the need for an independent rapporteur. The truth is that although Britain is a signatory to the Council of Europe convention against human trafficking, no changes in domestic legislation have yet been made to give effect to these new commitments. My Bill rises to this challenge.
There has been another development in the past month—in October, to be precise. The European Commission accepted Britain’s application to opt in to the anti-trafficking directive. As an opted-in country, we will now have no choice but to make legislative changes to give effect to the directive. To this end, the Government are fortunate that my team has already done much of the work. However, my Bill goes a little beyond the directive in some key aspects, which I shall highlight later.
I start by addressing the need for better protection of children who have been trafficked. The government agency, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, publishes strategic threat assessments every year that make it plain that, between 2007 and February 2010, 942 child victims of trafficking were identified, of which a staggering 301, or 32 per cent, are reported to have gone missing while in local authority care. This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs.
Clause 7 requires the Government to provide safe and appropriate accommodation for rescued victims of trafficking. Although one might argue that existing measures provide accommodation through local authorities, the large number of children who go missing clearly implies that the current safety measures for children are completely inadequate. Yes, we are providing children with accommodation, but a 32 per cent disappearance rate indicates that the accommodation is neither safe nor appropriate.
Clause 9 of the Bill, meanwhile, sets out parameters for a legal advocate who would protect the child’s welfare and work in the best interests of the child from the moment that they are identified as a victim of trafficking. There is currently a major problem with rescued victims being passed from one social worker to another, with very little continuity of care. Just last week, I met a young girl who was in tears about this. There are even accounts of children going to court to find that their social worker has not turned up. The legal advocate—some people prefer the term “guardian”—would provide a dedicated person to accompany the child victim of trafficking in all their interactions with the state.
The Government already consider that the existing system of care is sufficient to meet the requirements of the anti-trafficking directive, but my Bill raises the bar because it requires the provision of a system of guardianship through legal advocates, and would offer significant additional protection to child victims of trafficking from the moment that a child is identified as a victim by the authorities. With 301 children going missing between 2007 and February 2010, we clearly need more robust child protection than at present. Clause 9 provides for this.
I turn to Clause 8 on the compensation for the victims of trafficking. There are two rationales for compensation. The first is restorative justice. Trafficking takes place because there are large profits to be made, but the victims of trafficking rarely benefit from their labour. Traffickers will often provide the bare minimum—sufficient food, clothing and shelter—to ensure that they can continue to work. Even after a victim is liberated from their exploitive position, they seldom receive compensation for the work they have already done. Restorative justice teaches that part of rehabilitation is requiring the damage meted out against victims to be redeemed by the subsequent action of convicted perpetrators to the greatest extent possible. Compensation is one way in which this can be achieved. The second is the rebuilding of damaged lives. Trafficking is a completely devastating experience from which it can be very difficult to recover. Victims of trafficking need help to put their lives back together again beyond the influence of traffickers. This requires resources, to which end the provision of compensation is hugely important.
Retrafficking is a genuine concern. We know from research on this subject that trafficked persons who return to their countries of origin are met by economic circumstances similar to those which put them at risk of trafficking in the first place. Compensation, along with strong reintegration programmes, is one way to help victims to rebuild their lives upon returning home. Both the Council of Europe convention on trafficking and the EU directive make provision for compensation but they fail to properly address the UK problem, which is as follows.
At the moment, provision is made for the victims of trafficking to access compensation but it is rendered null and void by the fact that there is no parallel provision granting those with a credible claim permission to remain in the UK while the claim is being processed. Without this, the right to access compensation to rebuild their lives and make sure that they are not retrafficked is purely theoretical. To this end, Clause 8 of my Bill sets out provisions for compensation, including the necessary leave to remain to make a compensation claim.
There is arguably one thing that is worse than being trafficked and that is being trafficked and then caught committing a criminal offence under duress, for which one is then prosecuted. In such situations, the victims of trafficking must feel that the whole world is against them, as first they feel the wrath of the traffickers—the law-breakers—and then they feel the wrath of the state, the law-enforcer. In this context, far from compounding the trauma of victims of trafficking, the state should seek to help. Tragically, however, what is actually happening is that victims of trafficking are being pushed into the second trauma of prosecution. An example of this problem is provided by the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, which reports that a 14 year-old boy from Vietnam, initially found by police working on a cannabis farm, was placed in local authority care but subsequently went missing. Four months later, he was rediscovered at a second cannabis farm and was arrested and convicted of drug crimes. This seems to me morally indefensible.
I am not saying for one moment that we should move to a situation where all that any criminal has to do is to say that they have been a victim of trafficking and they will not be prosecuted. I am simply saying that such claims should be taken seriously and, when they are found to be genuine, we should not put victims of trafficking through the trauma of prosecution. Clause 5 of my Bill addresses this challenge.
Significant concern has been expressed about the Government’s commitment to fight trafficking, in part because no independent body exists to monitor trafficking in the light of which it is then possible to assess the efficacy of trafficking policy in the UK. Attempts by front-line organisations seeking information on trafficked persons are met with a frustrating lack of information. This includes data on victim care, assistance and support, and victims’ post-recovery period. The deficiency in record-keeping does not allow the Government to properly measure the impact of the current legislative and policy framework.
An independent watchdog or national rapporteur would fulfil the measures set out in the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings and the EU directive on human trafficking with regard to the provision of a national rapporteur. As such it would be completely independent of government, but have access to all relevant government data and produce regular public reports in the light of which one could assess whether things are improving or getting worse and whether the current policy and legislation are working.
However, the Government have argued that Britain is already compliant with the national rapporteur provisions because of the existence of an interdepartmental ministerial committee on trafficking. That is problematic for several reasons. First, far from being independent of government, an interdepartmental ministerial committee is clearly right at the heart of government. Secondly, as answers to Parliamentary Questions have revealed, that committee produces no reports. We know that information-sharing among immigration officials, social services and charities across the UK is critical in the fight against trafficking. We must facilitate an annual assessment of the Government’s progress in the area in order to recommend robust policies in the future. Clause 12 of my Bill makes provision for that.
I could go on discussing other clauses in the Bill, but I conclude by saying simply that I am delighted that we are a signatory of the Council of Europe trafficking convention, that we have opted in to the anti-trafficking directive and that human trafficking is an explicit commitment of the coalition agreement. I am delighted by all this good intent but no amount of good intentions is any substitute for results. At present, our results—like losing 301 trafficked children in three years—are not very inspiring. We need to connect our good intentions to a clear political will that will follow through by introducing appropriate legislative changes to give effect to our good intentions. That is the reason for my Bill. I commend it to the House. I beg to move.
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, as we are so short of time, I shall simply thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. It has been very informative and has provided many very helpful suggestions. I beg to move that the Bill be now given a Second Reading.
Disabled People: Disability Hate Crime
Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts(14 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Browning
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. One of the difficulties that we often face is with professionals who have only a passing interest. He particularly mentioned the medical profession. I do not want to generalise, because some very good work is done by the medical profession, but you cannot expect the medical profession to be experts in everything. There are important factors to remember when they come into contact with people, particularly those in the group mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, whom the Mencap report focused on. Learning disability is defined as people who have an IQ of under 70. Some of those on the autistic spectrum have very high IQs and yet their disability is still there. It is important that when people are referred to so-called professionals, whether in the medical profession or elsewhere, for some sort of assessment, the person seeing them either has the expertise to make a proper assessment or has the good grace to refer them to someone who has.
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, vis-à-vis the reference to the medical profession, does my noble friend agree that politicians are not exactly paragons of virtue in this field? In another place an MP with cerebral palsy was ridiculed for his speech.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, my noble friend hits on something very important and we should make hate crime against people who are disabled a priority. What is sometimes euphemistically referred to as anti-social behaviour or low-level crime has a cumulative effect, as we saw particularly in the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington. Also, when people commit hate actions, whether they are verbal or physical, that is criminal; it is not low level, it is not just an anti-social euphemism, it is criminal and should be treated as such.
Child Trafficking
Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Browning
My Lords, I quite disagree with the noble Lord. The announcement yesterday of the national crime agency means that we will set up a body which will have four pillars—which will not be silos; they will work together—of which child protection is a key part. The whole agency will be responsible for gathering intelligence, analysis of that intelligence and a crime-fighting force that will not just be based in the capital but will interact with police forces around the country.
The problems that we face in areas such as trafficking do not confine themselves to local police force borders. Children and adults who have been trafficked are moved around. They are, in effect, in slavery and may not be in the place where they came into the country. That is organised crime and it recognises no borders. I believe that the national crime agency will bear down on that, as it will in other areas of organised crime.
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, we have already had First Reading of my Bill to implement the human trafficking directive. When will we have Second Reading so that we can get transposition under way?
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I would have to consult the usual channels on the timetabling of any legislation in this House. I hope that my noble friend will be reassured by the fact that, in opting into the directive, if that is accepted, we have already identified several changes that will need to be made in order to be compliant with the directive. They include: widening one existing offence of trafficking for forced labour; amending existing trafficking offences to confer extra-territorial jurisdiction over UK nationals who commit trafficking offences anywhere in the world; making mandatory some measures which are currently good practice—for example, appointing special representatives to support child witnesses during police investigations and criminal trials; and setting out the rights of victims to assistance and support.