Independent Advocates for Trafficked Children

David Simpson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered independent advocates for trafficked children.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter.

I was proud to contribute to the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Although I wanted it to include specialist guardians for trafficked children, I was glad to support section 48, which provides for independent advocates to be available to promote the best interests of those children, advocating for them and accompanying them through the many confusing official processes that they encounter. Section 48 benefited from a series of improvements as it passed through Parliament, and the Minister and the Government are to be commended for listening to the concerns and suggestions of Members and responding with positive changes to strengthen the role of advocates.

Let us just stop to think for a moment about the lives of children who have been brought to this country by exploitative criminal traffickers. They are lonely in a bewildering foreign country where they do not speak the language. The person who brought them here may have sexually exploited them or tried to get them involved in criminal activity to recoup the cost of their horrible and terrifying journey. They may be told that if they do not collaborate their families will suffer. They feel scared and abandoned. Some 982 children were identified as having probably been trafficked last year, and we know that there are more who will never come to the attention of the authorities. That is why Kevin Hyland, Britain’s independent anti-slavery commissioner, has said that

“it is essential to ensure child advocates are put in place as soon as possible.”

However, a year later, section 48 remains dormant on the statute book. More than a year since the Act was passed, and three months after the Minister promised we would be presented with new proposals, vulnerable trafficked children are still without the specialist support that the Act intended to provide. The delay in establishing the scheme is particularly disappointing in the light of the positive evaluation of the trial schemes produced for the Government by the University of Bedfordshire and published in December, which concluded that

“evidence from the trial suggests that advocates added value to existing provision, to the satisfaction of the children and most stakeholders. The ICTA service”—

—the Independent Child Trafficking Advocates service—

“appears to be important in ensuring clarity, coherence and continuity for the child, working across other services responsible for the child, over time and across contexts…This evaluation’s main conclusion is that the specialist ICTA service has been successful as measured in relation to several beneficial outcomes for trafficked children.”

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her fantastic work with the all-party group on human trafficking. During my time on the group, there was an issue with consistency in how police services throughout the United Kingdom deal with trafficked children. Has that improved with time or are there still the same difficulties?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I do not think we have evidence about consistency, to be honest, but a comprehensive advocacy service would give us that evidence and could also improve consistency. The advocates were able to help children to orient themselves and navigate complex services; to keep trafficked children safely visible to all authorities—we know that is a problem in some areas—to build relationships of trust with the children and with other professionals; to speak up for children where necessary; to maintain momentum in the progress of their cases, including planning for their future; and to improve the quality of decision making in those cases. The children in the trials who had an advocate felt more secure and supported than those who did not. In the words of the report,

“when an advocate was involved in their life, the children had a sense of being cared for in a ‘tight knit’ manner. For the comparator group children, a steady impression emerged of more ‘loose weave’ relationships with intermittent contact with social workers”.

As one child put it:

“I can call my social worker and then she tells me OK but I’m busy or something. But if I call [the advocate] then she can make things happen.”