Independent Advocates for Trafficked Children

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who has been an advocate of this issue for many years. This important issue is vital to children, so I do not intend to be political in my contribution today. I intend to enhance the debate and contribute some of the thoughts from Scotland. I want to make it clear that this issue affects vulnerable children and young people.

The issue is fundamentally important because children are at immediate risk of further harm and exploitation. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children highlights several reasons why children are recruited, moved or transported. These include benefit fraud; forced marriage; domestic servitude such as cleaning, childcare or cooking; forced labour in factories or agriculture; and criminal activity such as pickpocketing, begging, transporting drugs, working in cannabis farms, selling pirated DVDs and petty bag theft. In this range of small, medium and large crimes, children are exploited. They have no advocate to make a case for them and the exploitation that they suffer on a daily basis is absolutely the reason why we must have this debate today.

Trafficked children experience multiple forms of abuse and neglect, including physical, sexual and emotional violence, which is often used to control trafficked children. We are therefore today giving a voice to those children who have been silenced in this process through the absence of the necessary advocacy that is vital to their needs. The right hon. Member for Slough has done a great deal of work on this issue already through her work on the all-party parliamentary group, and I commend her for that.

As the right hon. Lady has highlighted, the National Crime Agency has already identified 982 cases of child trafficking in 2015, as I am sure the Minister is well aware. That is an increase of 46% from 2014. We could on the one hand link this to the refugee crisis, but that would be too crude. The simple fact is that we know this issue is escalating and ultimately we know that we must respond to it. That picture of child trafficking should surely be enough to convince the Minister that victims are desperately in need of independent advocates—people whose role it is to understand what is going on and to represent and support children believed to be the victims of trafficking. That gives those vulnerable children a voice through the care, immigration and criminal justice systems. We understand all too well that, even for adults, those are bureaucratic and lengthy processes and not something that any child should ever have to contend with.

The need for those vital services has already been recognised by Parliament in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in a section that received widespread cross-party support, so I am sure I am not telling the Minister anything that she does not already know. That led to the child trafficking advocates pilot project, which is provided by Barnardo’s and funded by the Home Office. However, following an independent evaluation of the pilot scheme, the Government have not acted to make independent child trafficking advocates available across England and Wales. That must be done to ensure that young people and children receive the support that they vitally need. I support the calls from various charities, including Barnardo’s, Christian Aid, UNICEF and many others, which were outlined in a letter to The Guardian.

The EU directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings highlights the necessity for England and Wales to extend the pilot, which is especially important now. I do not want to labour the current situation around the EU referendum, but we must ultimately accept that we continue to have a responsibility and that these measures to ensure independent advocates for unaccompanied victims of trafficking have come on the back of an EU directive. The failure to appoint an independent guardian with sufficient legal powers means that the UK is currently non-compliant with the EU directive. Again, I do not say that to be political. I say it simply to state the case: measures to stop trafficking cannot be allowed to fail or fall short of international standards. It is therefore important that the Minister ensures that future revisions of the scheme will adhere to international best practice and guidelines. I urge the Government to commence section 48 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and establish a permanent independent advocacy provision as soon as possible.

Turning to Scotland, on which I like to think I have something to contribute, I highlight the work that has been done in Scotland as one model that could be followed by England and Wales. The Scottish Government have made a solid commitment to make provision for independent child trafficking guardians for eligible children. That is part of a wider project to make Scotland a hostile place to trafficking, where it is very clear that child trafficking is not welcome, and to better identify and support potential and confirmed victims. As a result, needless to say, Scotland’s provisions outstrip England and Wales at this time, but that does not mean that England and Wales cannot catch up, and I urge them to do so.

New legislation introduced by the Scottish Government last year—the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015—will protect those subjected to these terrible crimes while punishing those who commit them. The maximum penalty for trafficking was increased from 14 years, as it is in England and Wales, to life imprisonment—a statement of how seriously Scotland takes this.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The Modern Slavery Act, when it was introduced and commenced in July last year, increased the maximum sentence to life imprisonment for all trafficking offences.

[Angela Crawley]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. I should have added “as it is in England and Wales” after “life imprisonment”, just to be absolutely clear. Scotland has sent out a message that trafficking will not be tolerated under any circumstances and I urge the UK to do that also. That legislation also underpins the need for independent advocates. It places a duty to ensure protections by making independent child trafficking guardians available and requiring statutory referrals to be made by people who are in a position to do so. Scotland’s law enforcement agencies therefore have greater powers to bring those responsible to justice.

I mentioned previously how abhorrent child trafficking is and I think we all share that thought. That approach must be considered for application across the UK to end those practices. I am sure the Minister shares our collective concerns. She has proven always to be reasoned and thorough in her responses, so I therefore simply urge her not to delay further on section 48 of the Modern Slavery Act and to establish a permanent independent advocate without further delay. Lastly, to echo the beautiful words of the right hon. Member for Slough, “every child needs their person”.