Child Trafficking

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

I can assure the noble Baroness that we have studied very carefully the situation in Scotland, and we are continuing to monitor it—although so far, it looks from what happens in Scotland as though the term “guardian” is probably more represented by the term “advocate”. A “guardian” has a slightly different connotation to “advocate”, but we are continuing to look at this matter. Our view is that the UK is already compliant with the directive in terms of child guardians. Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that they safeguard and promote the welfare of children. However, I must tell the noble Baroness that while I have been encouraged by what we will do when we are able to opt into the directive and by what is coming forward in the new strategy, I am fully aware that in the welfare of children there is a need for a holistic overview, over and above issues such as the roof above their heads, security, food on the table, education, and those core things that statutory agencies of course supply. I will be following this very carefully to make sure that the holistic view is represented.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, the assistance and support measures set out in Article 10 of the directive include the provision of,

“appropriate and safe accommodation”.

However, at Barnardo’s, in which I declare an interest as vice-president, we have found that trafficked children are still being placed in unsafe hotels, hostels and bed-and-breakfast accommodation. As the study by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency showed, this is likely to be the main reason why a high proportion of trafficked children still go missing, when they really should be safe in local authority care. What do the Government intend to do to ensure that the practice of putting vulnerable children into unsafe accommodation is stopped as soon as possible?

[Baroness Browning]

My noble friend is quite right. The number of children in inappropriate care, resulting in children who have been identified as being trafficked going missing, is a very serious problem on which we must bear down. My noble friend mentioned CEOP. I hope that she will take comfort that CEOP will have a new role in this area. It will provide a national focus on the issue of missing children, and its role will in particular include education and training for the police; supporting police operations through targeted research and analysis; operational support for forces in searching for missing children; and ensuring that co-ordination arrangements and capability are placed to manage complex or high-profile missing cases. I would expect the new, enhanced role of CEOP in this area to address some of the problems which my noble friend mentioned, which are serious and need addressing urgently.