Child Slavery

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. He makes a valid point. It is a strength of the EU that we can have co-operation over a large number of countries when crimes are being committed that are clearly not retained within the boundaries of an individual nation.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent speech. Although the Government claim we are meeting all the requirements, what message does it send to those looking at countries to target if we do not sign up?

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, but I think he has answered himself. What he says is very true. The main thing is that we must be seen to be fighting this problem on all fronts, but there is a feeling that we are not.

I would be really interested to know whether guardianship is the issue that is holding us back from signing the directive. I strongly believe in the advantages of someone taking parental responsibility, and that has been alluded to. In a recent answer to a parliamentary question, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), said that responsibility for child trafficking victims lies with local authorities, but that can co-exist with parental responsibility. When it comes to children in care, for example, we are aware that we have not done enough about the concept of corporate responsibility. We are talking here about children who have been through so much, and it is not a big ask to ensure that there will be not only some corporate body, but an individual to whom children can relate and from whom they can get support.

At present, a number of organisations are being closed. That is a concern in itself, but I hope that the Minister can reassure us, perhaps by setting out an alternative way of doing things. I am by no means arguing that we must carry on doing things in exactly the same way as we have in the past, and I would very much welcome a brand new approach, but I just have to raise concerns. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority faces closure. We no longer have the Metropolitan police’s human trafficking unit and Operation Golf, which were particularly focused on child trafficking. The UK Human Trafficking Centre has been absorbed into another organisation. We are not clear whether all the POPPY project’s funding will be protected. CEOP itself will be absorbed into another organisation. That need not all be negative news—perhaps the news about the POPPY project is—if the Minister can assure us that we will do things better. In addition to those cuts, the voluntary sector, like all of us, is facing cuts, but the problem we are talking about needs resources as a matter of priority. The hon. Member for Upper Bann has shown us that it should be a high priority.

The key issues for me include preventing these problems in the first place. That has to involve working on a wider international scale. Another key issue is identification, which this country is not very good at. We do not really know how many sex workers or child victims there are in this country; we come up with numbers, but they are probably just the tip of iceberg. How can we have the right priorities and the right policies unless we have the knowledge? I hope that identification and raising awareness will be given priority in the national strategy on trafficking, which is due to be announced.

Local strategies are important, and I would like to be reassured about how they will be worked through. Our local safeguarding children boards have a lot to do on identification, raising awareness and making sure that the right services are developed and supplied locally. We all need to be aware of the dreadful issues around us.

Whether a person is under 18 is still a big issue. Representations have long been made to me to the effect that the immigration age assessment dispute process is often used to divert young people into the immigration system, rather than to protect them. Obviously, it is very difficult to determine the age of a child. We must have effective intervention, and I am sure that we can do so much more on that. We must have safe and appropriate accommodation, so that once children are rescued, they stay rescued.

We need better evidence. We need all agencies to share information and to work together. We need better prosecution procedures. We need to support victims so that they give evidence. I am a little concerned about the period of reflection allowed by the UK Border Agency. The time for deciding whether a person is trafficked is to be reduced from 45 to 30 days. In Italy, it is six months, which I have always felt gives people—particularly young women—time to build up their strength and the courage to bear witness against the perpetrators. It is very difficult for someone who has just been pulled away from a horrific situation to give evidence at that time.

We have been around the globe in the debate and finally I want to stop off in Dorset. I commend the work of Poole Soroptimists, who have done a great deal to highlight trafficking, through supporting the purple teardrop campaign. I went to a very well attended meeting in Dorset organised by the Soroptimists, and people there were deeply shocked. In Dorset we do not necessarily think that we have trafficked children in our midst; but we do—and we do all over the country. That is why awareness-raising is so important for me.

It is also important that there should be specialist police units. As with most areas, cutbacks in the number of police in Dorset are proposed. It has been suggested to me, although I have not had it confirmed, that one thing that might disappear is specialist police work on trafficking. That would be very sad, particularly in the light of my final point: we are all looking forward to the Olympic games, but we must fear what might happen in our country at that time. The evidence is that a major international sporting event causes an increase in sex exploitation, forced child begging and child labour. We are blessed to have the water sports in Dorset, but we are concerned that there should be adequate policing. Because we are a safe part of the country we naturally do not have the highest level of police funding, but we shall need adequate policing in the light of the issues associated with the Olympic games.

Like the hon. Member for Upper Bann I can say only that the problem is so serious that we would be very remiss as politicians if we were not to commit to work together and do our very best for children in such incredibly awful situations as he described.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Hood. I expect my speech to be brief. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) on securing this crucial debate, although I dearly wish that we did not need it. I also pay tribute to those who have spoken on what is a truly horrific subject.

I wish to highlight four areas of concern, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response. The first relates to the scale of the problem. I have done research and met organisations that wish to tackle the problem, and it is clear that, at best, the estimates are patchy, both in the UK and across the world. It seems that the true scale of the horror is all too often hidden away, lost in the system, or simply ignored. Far more needs to be done to make sure that we get a real understanding of just how horrific the situation is.

Secondly, if a victim is rescued in the UK and is brought in by the police, it worries me that, if they do not provide a statement or if they withdraw one, all too often an investigation does not follow. The main reason for that is that the victims live in fear of the gangs that control them. Unless we are able to convince them and give them confidence that we can provide them with sufficient protection, we will always struggle to get that evidence and break the grip of those gangs. I urge the Minister to look at whether we can proceed without getting all the evidence or statements from victims, or to make sure that those victims are given sufficient care.

The worst example is when a victim is released on bail and, as they leave the police station, the gangs are waiting outside to take them back. They are then lost to the system, the evidence trail is destroyed, and the cycle of despair continues. If the victim goes through the process and is placed in local authority care, the gangs will target those children and snatch them, often just days after they have been placed there. It is clear that the safeguards in such cases are woefully inadequate. Another worry is that, when rescued, the victims are often treated as criminals themselves, for either drug or immigration offences. They are treated as criminals, not victims.

Thirdly, on awareness, all too often, people acknowledge that this is an horrific issue while claiming that it does not happen in their area. But yes, it does—it happens under everybody’s noses. Gangs often target some of this country’s more affluent, new-build estates, where residents cannot name their neighbours, to be safe houses, cannabis-cultivating factories and brothels, because people do not notice when others come and go at different times. We all have a duty, as elected representatives and the Government, to highlight the issue. People need to be aware of it and understand that, if they see suspicious behaviour, they should report it to be investigated. I have been surprised a number of times to see that what seemed to be a quiet, well respected, crime-free area was actually hiding something pretty horrific behind closed curtains. We all have a duty to play a part in raising awareness of the issue.

Finally, I wish to highlight the issue of sex offences abroad by UK citizens, particularly the three-day loophole that allows known sex offenders to travel abroad for up to three days without notifying the authorities. In reality, that is a minor inconvenience if someone seeks to travel in Europe. It might stop them travelling to the other side of the world without supervision, but it causes no problem at all in relation to modern travel in Europe. Our record of prosecutions of British citizens for child sexual abuses overseas has been described by Christine Beddoe of ECPAT UK as “appalling”. Frankly, that is shameful and more should be done, because it relates to our citizens perpetrating horrific crimes abroad.

I shall conclude with a plea. There is clear cross-party support for action. Although the UK in many ways leads in this area, much more can be done to protect and rescue victims. It requires better co-ordination of services, because it is not just about the Government. It is a multi-service agency issue and we all have a part to play. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has said, it is about fighting on all fronts, and we need real leadership to deliver. As has been said, behind every statistic is a real life horror story, and I urge the Minister urgently to deliver the leadership that we all want and that victims so desperately need.