Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the prevalence of child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially in the cobalt mining industry.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We continue to monitor reports of modern slavery within the mining sector of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), especially in cobalt mining. The artisanal mining sector is particularly vulnerable to modern slavery and human rights abuses, with regular reports of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). The UK Government remains committed to eradicating all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking in line with achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 by 2030. In September 2023, the UK funded the participation of survivors of modern slavery in workshops developing the DRC's Country Roadmap towards achieving Goal 8.7. The UK has supported efforts to end the worst forms of child labour in countries such as the DRC, Ethiopia and Central African Republic through the Partnership Against Child Exploitation (PACE) programme.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions her Department has had with (a) other national governments and (b) international organisations on links between climate change and modern-slavery.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As hosts of the United Nations (UN) Conference of Parties (COP) 26 climate summit, the UK is leading international efforts on climate change and setting the bar for countries around the world to follow. We continue to advocate for progress to eradicate modern slavery and are proud that under our G7 Presidency we secured the cooperation of G7 leaders to tackle modern slavery in global supply chains.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has engaged leading academic and civil society organisations to better understand the linkages between climate change and modern slavery. The former UK Envoy for Migration and Modern Slavery was a speaker at an event hosted by Anti-Slavery International on Climate Change, Modern Slavery and a Just Transition in April 2021. Through the Human Rights Council, the UK has also worked to raise standards in relation to environmental protection and human rights. The FCDO funded the UN University Centre for Policy Research to produce the report Developing Freedom (2020) which considers how fighting modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking (Sustainable Development Goal 8.7) can contribute to sustainable development, including tackling climate change. The report can be found at: www.developingfreedom.org.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February 2020 to Question 18684 on Developing Countries: Human Trafficking, for what reasons her Department took the decision not to collate disaggregated data on adolescence age.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The programme works with vulnerable children and young people and there are ethical and data protection considerations that need to be addressed before we can disaggregate to this level. ‘Children on the Move’ will provide a final figure of adolescent girls reached at the end of the programme (December 2020). Figures will be primarily based on children who receive case management, the most reliable tool to capture such data.
The programme is also undertaking multi-country research on the drivers of migration for boys and girls, including the risks they face along the way. This is using both qualitative and quantitative data. Once completed, the research will supplement the learning on how, and how many, adolescent girls are at child protection risks due to migration.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February 2020 to Question 18684 on Developing Countries: Human Trafficking, whether her Department has made an estimate of the number of adolescent girls protected by the Children on the Move programme.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
Adolescent girls (aged 10-19) are amongst the age range of children and young people being reached by critical protective services in ‘Children on the Move’. We do not currently disaggregate to this level, apart from in the skills building component, called UPSHIFT. UPSHIFT targets at-risk young people – of whom approximately 47% are adolescent girls.
‘Children on the Move’ is currently reviewing ethical and data protection issues as it shifts to increasing the level of age disaggregation used. We expect that by the end of the programme (December 2020) we will have figures on how many adolescent girls have been reached by the programme.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2020 to Question 8428, if her Department will take steps to collect data on the trafficking of adolescent girls.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK uses the best available data to tackle trafficking and modern slavery, including of adolescent girls. Sources include the International Organization for Migration’s database of human trafficking cases (available online through the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s data on trafficking in persons (available through the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons).
DFID works with our delivery partners to ensure women and girls are protected from abuse during crises. To ensure we have the best possible evidence to achieve this, we require delivery partners to use sex and age disaggregated data in their reporting.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2020 to Question 8428, how many adolescent girls were supported by the £12 million UK Aid Connect Programme from 2018 to 2022.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK Aid Connect programme “Effective Approaches to End Worst Forms of Child Labour”, led by World Vision, will enable boys and girls to enjoy their rights to be protected from the worst forms of child labour in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. The programme started in 2018 and by 2022, more than 24,000 people will benefit directly of which about 14,500 are children including roughly 7,000 boys and 7,500 girls.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2020 to Question 8428, how many of the 400,000 children protected by the Children on the Move Programme were adolescent girls.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
‘Children on the Move’ is operating over three years (2017-2020) to prevent and respond to violence, abuse and exploitation of children who are at greatest risk of migration and modern slavery. Adolescent girls are amongst the target group.
By December 2019, 377,003 children had been reached with protective services under phase one and two of the programme. Disaggregated data on sex was not available for phase one and not available for adolescence age in both phases. The second phase of the programme has reached a total of 160,651 children to date, of which girls of all ages, including adolescent girls, constitute 47% (75,606).
Asked by: Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action the Department of International Development is taking to (1) protect girls from trafficking and exploitation in crises, and (2) provide support for survivors of trafficking.
Answered by Baroness Sugg
Since 2017 the UK Government has more than doubled UK Aid investment to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking to over £200 million. DFID programmes seek to tackle the root causes of modern slavery and human trafficking by addressing the permissive environments which allow slavery to exist and supporting the most vulnerable to escape slavery – particularly children, women and girls.
For example, we have reached over 380,000 women and girls through our flagship £10 million Work in Freedom Programme, which aims to reduce vulnerability to trafficking and the forced labour of women and girls in South Asia and Arab States.
DFID’s Strategic Vision on Gender Equality sets out our ambition to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls during emergencies, when the challenges and needs are particularly acute. We have increased our resources and expanded our programmes to tackle violence against women and girls in more than 30 countries.
Full details of current programmes can be found at https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether tackling the (a) production and (b) trafficking of illegal drugs are conditions of the allocation of Official Development Assistance to developing countries.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government takes the issue of tackling the illegal production and trafficking of drugs seriously. UK Aid currently support developing nations to strengthen their law enforcement and criminal justice capability, enabling them to tackle serious organised crime more effectively.
Most evidence concludes that attaching conditions to aid does not bring about policy changes that governments were not already prioritising. Instead DFID works closely with partner governments to make a positive, evidence-based case for change.
Our assessment of a government’s commitment to reducing poverty, achieving the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, along with respecting human rights and other international obligations is used to inform our overall strategy for engagement in all countries in which DFID has a bilateral aid partnership.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps he is taking to tackle the (a) trafficking and (b) exploitation of adolescent girls in humanitarian crises.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
DFID is at the heart of the UK’s international efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.7 by taking immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking, as well as on other relevant SDGs covering human trafficking of women and girls and exploitation of children.
In DFID’s Strategic Vision on Gender Equality, we set out our ambition to do more to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls during emergencies, when the challenges and needs are particularly acute. Ending this violence is essential in making the world a fairer, more prosperous and safer place – something that is absolutely in our national interest. That’s why we have increased our resources and expanded our programmes to tackle violence against women and girls in more than 30 countries.
Since 2017 the Government has more than doubled UK aid spending to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking – committing just over £200 million to date. This includes work to prevent the trafficking of adolescent girls. Examples of our current work to protect vulnerable children in protracted crises include:
- a £10 million Children on the Move Programme (in partnership with UNICEF) over the period 2017-2020 to protect up to 400,000 children at risk of violence and slavery in the Horn of Africa; and
- a £12 million UK Aid Connect Programme over the period 2018-2022 to address child labour in fragile and conflict affected states in Africa (such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)).