Child Slavery

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) for bringing the matter to Westminster Hall for debate. Many of us are aware of the issue, both within and outside our constituencies. I prepared a speech about a month ago, when my hon. Friend told me about the debate, but it is still relevant today, because things have not changed since then. They are still the same. The research about the amount of slavery in the world shocked me. I was sickened to my stomach as I read some of the stories. If hon. Members have not read the background information provided by the House of Commons Library they need to do so. When they do, they will be as shocked as I was about what is going on throughout the world.

An estimated 27 million people live in bondage today, but we know little about their plight. It is easy to watch a red nose day special and regard those precious faces in Africa and other parts of the world with a sense of pity, sympathy and perhaps compassion, but it is harder to face the fact that the problem is not simply an African one, but a global one. It is shameful to say that we are not immune in the UK. The hon. Members who have spoken so far have underlined that, and so will those who follow. I read a report in The Independent—I do not buy it, by the way—that stated that more than 5,000 children are being forced to work as sex slaves in the UK. I find that almost impossible to comprehend in a modern, understanding and compassionate society. The figure includes thousands trafficked to this country by criminal gangs. Indeed, a study of global slavery exposed Britain as a major transit point for the movement of child slaves around the world. The United Kingdom, of which we are all members, with UK passports, is an integral part of child slavery, the sex trade and the exploitation of children that goes on.

The report paints a shocking picture of an international web of gangmasters exploiting children as young as five, as well as vulnerable women. Many are threatened with violence, then sold into the sex trade and forced to become domestic servants. The issue is not all about physical abuse or sexual exploitation, as people are also exploited as domestic servants. Some would say that they are paid to work, and in many cases they are, but they do not always retain their full wages, which are kept as “savings”. They are told that if they go to the police they will be imprisoned, and they live in fear. The human trafficking trade now generates an estimated £5 billion a year worldwide, which makes it the second biggest international criminal industry after the drugs trade. I ask the coalition Government what priority they give to tackling that form of exploitation and child slavery.

Children’s charities in Britain say that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of referrals of trafficked children to sexual exploitation services. An investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that the gangs, especially those from Romania and Lithuania, as well as Africa, increasingly target Britain, because markets in other European countries, such as Spain and Italy, are saturated. Things have moved slightly, and the impact is different.

We need tighter rules, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) clearly showed in relation to the EU directive. I look for some hope in that regard from the Minister. Will we sign up to the directive? I think that we should, and sooner rather than later.

Abolitionists fighting sex traffic in both south-east Asia and Latin America report that parents commonly sell their kids so that they can make an improvement to their home or purchase a vehicle or other consumer item. Those stories align with a report in The New York Times that parents in Albania sold their children to traffickers so that they could buy a colour TV. Can you take that in, Mr Hood—that anyone would do that with their child for the price of a colour TV? My goodness me; that could be about £150. Is that the price of a child today? Going by the background material available, and press stories, some 70,000 children are kidnapped in China every year, of whom only 6,000 are returned to their parents. Every year 64,000 children in China go missing and disappear into child exploitation across the world.

I received a breakdown of facts from the International Labour Organisation about child labour, which more often than not translates as children being forced to work for little or no recompense, to all intents and purposes as slaves. There are 246 million children who are child labourers and 73 million working children less than 10 years old. No country is immune or outside the problem, which involves 2.5 million working children in the developed economies, and another 2.5 million in transition economies. Every year, 22,000 children die in work-related accidents. The largest number of working children aged 14 and under—127 million—are in the Asia-Pacific region. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion of working children: nearly one third of children aged 14 and under—I think it is about 48 million children.

Most children work in the informal sector, without legal or regulatory protection, and 8.4 million children are trapped in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities. Of those, 1.2 million have been trafficked. One out of six children in the world today is involved in child labour, doing work that is damaging to his or her mental condition and physical and emotional development.

The ILO study has shown that the economic benefits of eliminating child labour will be nearly seven times greater than the costs. That does not include the moral benefits, and the most basic fact—that children can then have some semblance of childhood. Nearly three quarters of working children are engaged in what the world recognises as the worst forms of child labour, including trafficking, armed conflict, slavery, sexual exploitation and hazardous work—things we in this Chamber would shun. What co-operation is there with other countries to ensure that child trafficking or illegal and criminal activities are curtailed or stopped?

Amnesty International has stated that the strategy currently employed to combat that in the UK is ineffective and must be revamped. That must be our ultimate goal and aim. We must work with the zeal, enthusiasm and energy of Wilberforce—his name has already been mentioned—and pray that our results will come a lot sooner. I support the point made by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) about sporting activities. The information supplied by the Library refers to the under-age sex trade booming at the Superbowl. In modern society and in modern world, whether it is the United Kingdom, the USA or elsewhere, people have a responsibility due to their affluence, their money and what they can buy. A child—and the innocence of a child—cannot be bought; I feel very strongly about that. It amazes me to read that some

“300,000 girls between 11 and 17 are lured into the US sex industry”

every year. That shocks and worries me. The story was also in the press, and it notes that some 50 children were rescued during the previous two Superbowls. Those who follow the event will know from watching it on TV that it is a great sporting occasion, but in the background there is the shadow of criminal and illegal activity, which causes me concern.

In conclusion, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann on highlighting the issue again, and pledge to work with him, with others present and with the Government to ensure that we, as elected representatives, speak out for those who have no voice, and cry out for the rights of the oppressed. These children are the most vulnerable and we have a responsibility to them. Let us carry out that responsibility and I ask the Government—our Government; my Government—to work with us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) on securing a debate on this important issue, on which there is cross-party support, concern and willingness to address the problems that still exist and, as the hon. Gentleman said, to end the evil of child slavery once and for all.

The hon. Gentleman gave a powerful and moving account, with both a global and a focused, national perspective, which was helpful. It was also rich in reports, statistics and research, which is always helpful when dealing with an emotive subject such as this. He talked about the three key issues of forced marriages, sexual exploitation and economic exploitation, and addressed the problem of bonded labour, particularly in India. It was good to hear him quote at the end of his contribution the words of William Wilberforce. I am a Member of Parliament for William Wilberforce’s home city of Hull, and we in that city know that the problems of trafficking and child slavery are still with us today and that there is still much more that we need to do.

The brutal trade in trafficked children and child slavery is the modern-day manifestation of the slavery that William Wilberforce and others campaigned to abolish more than 200 years ago. We are concentrating today on child slavery, but it is so near to international women’s day that it is right to point out the overlapping trade in trafficked women around the world who are also kept in slavery.

We have heard interesting and thoughtful contributions from hon. Members during the debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who has a strong record in championing children’s rights and has been a strong advocate for standing up for the most vulnerable in our society. Her analysis—at the beginning she focused on the international perspective and she then moved on to the issue of trafficking—was very well thought through. What struck me about what she and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said was their comments on the issue of awareness. In many parts of the country, people think that child slavery or trafficking does not happen in their area—people have said that to me in Hull—but when we start to dig down, we realise that there are problems with trafficking all around the country. It was interesting to note the reading habits of the hon. Member for Strangford. He reads The Independent, although he said that he did not buy it.

[Jim Shannon]

Once.

[Diana Johnson]

Perhaps just once. The hon. Gentleman talked about the generation of £5 billion through the operation of slavery worldwide. That is a huge figure and we need to bear that in mind, because some very powerful interests will want to make sure that slavery continues. He also talked about Albania, China and the international issues there. The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) correctly reminded us about the victims. We need to ensure that we focus on the needs of those victims.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is the chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking. He has done a huge amount of work on the matter and has followed in the footsteps of the former Member for Totnes, Sir Anthony Steen. Thousands of people—children, women and some men—are brought into the UK each year to work in the sex trade. In 2008-09, the Select Committee on Home Affairs claimed that more than 5,000 people were being trafficked. In 2003, the total economic and social cost of human trafficking for sexual exploitation was put at around £1 billion. Many more people, including hundreds of children, are smuggled into the country each year to be exploited as domestic servants, farm hands or drug cultivators. We know that that is a real problem in the Vietnamese community. Vietnam is the most prominent of the 47 countries of origin for trafficked children and there seems to be a particular focus on young boys between the age of 13 to 17, who act as gardeners and cultivate cannabis plants in various settings.

In the remaining time, I shall discuss the EU directive on human trafficking. We have had lots of discussion this afternoon about why the Government have chosen not to sign up to the directive. The Government have said that they are already meeting the requirement set out in the directive. If that is right, which is in dispute, I ask the Minister to explain what would be lost by signing up to it. If we are doing everything anyway, what is the problem? Many hon. Members and organisations think that the Government are not complying with the directive. That was pointed out by many hon. Members in the debate on human trafficking held in Westminster Hall on 12 October and in the anti-slavery debate on the Floor of the House on 14 October.

As the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole mentioned, a report was published by CARE—a Christian charity—on 7 February entitled, “The EU Directive on Human Trafficking: Why the UK Government Should Opt-in.” The report shows areas where the Government are not complying with the EU directive. They include support for child victims; widening the trafficking definition to forced begging; giving jurisdiction over UK citizens engaging in trafficking overseas; assistance to victims of trafficking in health care and accommodation; the investigation and prosecution of trafficking crime; protection of victims in criminal proceedings; and establishing an independent national rapporteur on trafficking. Such a role would be similar in nature to the one that Lord Carlile played in anti-terror policies.

The Government oppose in particular the measure on guardianship for child victims of trafficking—an issue that is referred to in early-day motion 513 tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough and which has been raised by a number of charities. I would be grateful if the Minister shed some light on that subject. The Minister for Immigration told the House that the Government do not want to be bound by measures that “are against our interests”. It would be interesting if the Minister responding to this debate explained what that means. To whose interests is the Minister for Immigration referring?

The coalition agreement states that tackling human trafficking is a priority. I ask the Minister how much of a priority the matter is for the Government. I am concerned that many measures have been introduced that will weaken the protection of children from exploitation and the protection of vulnerable children, trafficked children and children who are held against their will. For example—the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole referred to this—there have been Government grant cuts to children’s services in councils. We already know that there is a lack of awareness about trafficking and child slavery, and I am concerned that those cuts will have even further impact. There have also been cuts to specialist policing in the area of trafficking. Operation Golf has been abandoned, vetting and barring procedures have been weakened—as set out just yesterday in the Protection of Freedoms Bill—the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been closed, and the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre have been dismantled. In addition, last year, ContactPoint was abandoned.

On the issues of child slavery and trafficking, co-operation is the wisest policy for the Government to follow. The cost of not pursuing such a policy will be terrible for exploited children and other vulnerable people. Many hon. Members have discussed the need to secure convictions, but we need a comprehensive approach to do so. On 27 January, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), justified not taking a decision on whether to opt into the EU Directive, and stated that

“we will make our decision in due course.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 440.]

That is particularly surprising bearing in mind the stance of the Liberal Democrat party on the issue and its long-standing view on the matter, which it has held for many years.

We all want to do everything we can to stop child slavery and trafficking. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government plan to address the issues raised in this afternoon’s debate.