Anti-Slavery International welcomes the landmark decision by the High Court yesterday (19 February 2009) to compensate four Moldovan women trafficked into forced prostitution in the UK with more than £600,000 in damages, and calls for the compensation of trafficked people to become part of mainstream criminal proceedings.

The women, all in their twenties, were tricked into leaving Moldova with the promise of finding work as dancers. Each borrowed £20,000 upfront from the criminal gang for bringing them to Britain.

The women were kept captive and forced to work in brothels across London. They were forced to have sex with up to 40 men daily, fed just one meal a day, and fined for refusing to have unprotected sex. The women paid £300 a day in ‘rent’ and were even charged for using cutlery. The women never saw a penny of their earnings.

Klara Skrivankova, trafficking programme co-ordinator at Anti-Slavery International said: “This is a case of trafficking, debt bondage and slavery. In light of the High Court’s verdict it is time for compensation to become a mainstream part of all criminal proceedings in trafficking cases.

“Sadly it is not uncommon for women from across the world to be tricked by unscrupulous individuals with the promise of a better life. Though no amount of money can possibly make up for the nightmare of slavery, compensation plays an important role in helping trafficked people recover from the physical, emotional and financial losses of their ordeal, as well as providing a sense of justice.”

This is the first time that a court has dealt with a compensation claim for a trafficking case, though the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority awarded nearly £100,000 in July 2007 to two Romanian women also trafficked and forced into prostitution.

It is estimated that at any one time there are 5,000 trafficked people in the UK. All forms of human trafficking constitute a criminal offence in the UK and carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. By May 2008 there had been 86 convictions for trafficking for sexual exploitation.

A UN report on global trafficking released last week found that 99% of trafficking victims are never identified, with less than 22,000 of the 2 million people estimated to be trafficked globally each year reported to the authorities.

In this amazingly well-connected world of information, it’s tragic to see how often slavery in the UK seems to literally slip through the net. It could be that facing up to the truth about slavery is just too difficult to bear – after all, we like to think it was erradicated two hundred years ago don’t we?

Read for example the Report issued in 2007 by Drugscope – a Government-funded charity – revealing  child victims of UK cannabis farm boom eighteen months ago. Here’s an extract:

DrugScope is today highlighting the plight of Vietnamese children and young people caught up in illegal cannabis cultivation in this country. Trafficked to the UK by drug gangs, children as young as 14 are being coerced into working as ‘human sprinkler systems’ to water and tend plants in UK cannabis farms. When a cannabis farm is raided, these victims of ‘modern slavery’ can face harsh penalties in the courts, despite their trafficked status.

…In June, the Home Office published a report into child trafficking which identified Vietnamese young people as a vulnerable group who had been particularly exploited in cannabis production. The report details several cases where Vietnamese children have been jailed for cannabis cultivation and called on the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to avoid prosecuting trafficked cannabis farmers. DrugScope has also learned that the Head of the CPS, Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald, told an All Party Parliamentary Group on trafficking in July that he would be warning prosecutors to take into account the back story of children found working in cannabis factories.

Now fast-forward eighteen months to today and let’s look at some headlines:

In the New Statesman recently:

Cannabis farms are being run in suburban houses by organised crime gangs, and staffed by illegally smuggled children, generally aged between 14 and 16

And in local press around the country we see examples of how children caught in cannabis factories are treated by the justice system. Here’s a current story about a Vietnamese teenager published on Wales Online:

A VIETNAMESE teenager has appeared in court over his alleged part in a Cwmavon cannabis factory.

Long Quoc Tran is charged with being concerned with the production of cannabis at a house in Brooklands last month.

Another Vietnamese man, Ngu Nghia Nguyen, pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis at an earlier hearing and will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court next month.

Tran, of no fixed abode, entered no plea to the charge and magistrates in Neath agreed to transfer the case to Swansea Crown Court.

Tran gave his age in court as 15 but at an earlier hearing, after he could produce no documentation to support this, magistrates ruled he should stand trial in an adult court.

He was remanded in custody and will next appear before the court on March 6. His case is due to formally transfer to the Crown Court on March 20.

Now of course I’m not saying the teenager in the story above was trafficked into the UK or was a victim of slavery. I don’t know. But evidence suggests that it is possible. 

As Martin Barnes, Chief Executive of Drugscope, says in the report above:

“Some have considered large scale cannabis cultivation as an almost ‘victimless crime’ but the reality is that vulnerable young people are being exploited.

“Unfortunately they find themselves victims twice over – both at the hands of the criminal gangs who brought them to this country, forcing them to work in cramped, dangerous conditions to fuel the illegal drug trade – and again when they find themselves treated as criminals by the UK authorities.

“DrugScope urges the Home Office to issue formal guidance as soon as possible to the UK courts. These children should not be serving jail terms – they should be given support and protection.”

Freedom Trust will tell the stories as we hear them, to continue to raise awareness of the truth about slavery in the Uk and its thousands of victims.

We’ll also publish stories from recent years as we learn more about them or discover new resources.

In 2007, photojournalist agency Panos Pictures put together an exhibition in St Paul’s Cathedral illustrating stories of slavery in the UK and its victims. You can see some of the photos and stories of slavery in the UK here.

The agreement promises improvements in the way that victims of trafficking are supported by agencies such as the police, and sets minimum standards for supporting the victims of trafficking and slavery in the UK.

Some of the key promises include:

• a new national referral mechanism, providing a nationally agreed process to help frontline staff identify victims of trafficking and offer them support
• strengthened arrangements for looking after victims, including a 45 day reflection and recovery period, and the possibility of a one-year residence permit for victims
• better support for victims in giving information to police, which will help authorities bring those who exploit them to justice.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said, “Ratifying this convention helps us build on the existing measures in place in the UK aimed at turning the tables on traffickers and providing victims with protection, support and a voice in the criminal justice system.”

I hope it’s true. The agreement should make a significant difference to the way that victims of slavery in the UK are treated, as long as it is implemented properly on the ground.

The Government says that the National Policing Improvement Agency will undertake training of new police officers, and the UK Border Agency will begin a programme of awareness-raising for staff to prepare for the start of the new measures.

Freedom Trust has not seen any comment on whether existing police officers will be re-trained in how to identify and handle the victims of trafficking.

Useful resources:

Download the full Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Human Trafficking

UK Government’s press statement: Government ratifies European convention against human trafficking, 17 December 2008

Let’s look at some of the facts:

• UNICEF estimates that there are currently around 5,000 children being exploited commercially as sex workers in the UK, most of them trafficked into the UK, of whom 75% are girls.
• A 2004 study of the sex industry in London by the Poppy Project found that 85% of women working off-streets had been trafficked into prostitution in the UK – ten years earlier, the figure had been nearer 10%.
• The International Labour Organization estimates that the worldwide traffic in human beings is worth at least US$32 billion annually, with just under half of that (around US$15.5 billion) obtained from the traffic of people to industrialised countries (which includes the UK).
• There are no reliable estimates for the number of trafficked people in the UK. This is a problem acknowledged by both the police and the Home Office.

Thanks to Joseph Rowntree Foundation for their report Contemporary Slavery in the UK, in which many of the facts here are discussed in detail.

In the context of Freedom Trust, when we talk about trafficking we mean the moving of people for the purpose of exploiting them.

Trafficking is not always the same as illegal migration. In some cases trafficking might involve the legitimate entry of people into a country, but it becomes trafficking when it is carried out by others in order to exploit the migrants. Trafficking involves one or more of force, deception, or coercion. The victim of trafficking might have been a willing party at some stage, before they were aware of the deception involved.

Trafficking is usually across international borders but might also occur within borders.

The United Nations’ International Labour Organization believes that up to 1.2 million children – both boys and girls – are trafficked each year into exploitative work in agriculture, mining, factories, armed conflict, or commercial sex work.

“Trafficking in persons” is defined by the United Nations as:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Source: United Nations PROTOCOL TO PREVENT, SUPPRESS AND PUNISH TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, ESPECIALLY WOMEN
AND CHILDREN, SUPPLEMENTING THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME

So what can we do to care for the victims of slavery? At Freedom Trust, we’re developing our plans in this area but we want to hear from you too.

Add a comment to this post, or email us at info@feedomtrust.org to tell us how we can help victims of slavery.

Inside lies a shocking secret you never thought possible. Not in the UK. Not on your doorstep.

Then one day the house is raided by police and you see a scruffy looking Vietnamese couple trying to escape across gardens, eventually caught, handcuffed and taken away in a police car. Neighbours pour out onto the street to see the drama unfold as yet more police arrive and load hundreds of cannabis plants onto a van. It becomes clear that the house was being used as a cannabis factory.

But that’s not the most shocking crime. The truth is that the Vietnamese couple you saw – your neighbours – had been living for months as slaves to controlling drug producers.

It’s a true story that is unfolding right now all around the UK – on your doorstep. The victims in this kind of example are usually arrested, charged for growing cannabis, and either deported or imprisoned in the UK. The slavemasters behind it continue, moving to their next victims.

Freedom Trust will monitor stories of slavery in the UK, will research and tell the stories. Raising awareness will play an important role in bringing about change.

At the heart of many of the systems that support slavery in the UK is people trafficking. That’s not only the illegal movement of people across international borders – it’s often legal but carried out in a way that traps its victims. There are many forms of people trafficking, but they regularly involve deception, debt, and the control of vulnerable people by others – the very things that can lead to slavery.

I do not believe it would be possible to eradicate slavery in the UK or any nation without simply moving the problem elsewhere. Ending slavery is an international issue and will require worldwide action and co-operation amongst governments.

And we’ve got a long way to go: The police and Home Office acknowledge that there are no reliable estimates for the number of trafficked people in the UK, according to Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report on Contemporary Slavery in the UK in 2007.

How will we do this?

Researching & defining

We will work to discover who are the victims of slavery in the UK today, what are its causes, who is behind it, what can be done to end it.

Raising awareness

We will raise awareness about slavery in the UK today. We will tell the stories of pain, suffering and poverty and we will expose the truth about the slavery that exists in the UK’s neighbourhoods, cities, and around the nation.

Campaigning

We will do everything we can to bring about changes to the systems that allow slavery to exist in the UK today. We will campaign to Governments and organisations that can bring about change, and we will work alongside others who are already campaigning to end slavery.