Child Trafficking

Colin Walker

Deputy Director ECPAT UK

ECPAT UK

• End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking • ECPAT UK is a children’s rights charity campaigning for the

protection of child victims of trafficking and children exploited in tourism and the prevention of such crimes

• Research, Campaigning, Training, Youth Programme • Network in over 75 countries

Definition of Human Trafficking

• UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime • The ‘Palmero Protocol’:

“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"

• Child - anyone under the age of 18 • Children have special legal status

UK - What is the evidence?

• NRM to date: • 784 children referred (29

per cent of total) • Sexual exploitation = 28

per cent • Domestic servitude = 14

per cent • Labour exploitation = 31

per cent

• Key source countries: • Romania • Vietnam • Slovakia • China • UK • Nigeria

Why are children trafficked?

Why?

• Demand & supply • Poverty • Lack of education • Discrimination • Cultural attitudes & beliefs • Inadequate local laws &

infrastructure • Political conflict

Whom?

• Family • Community • Opportunistic individuals • Organised criminal gangs

Traffickers control

• Violence: physical & sexual • Removal of identity documents • Threats • Social isolation • Debt bondage • Dependency • Voodoo - traditional beliefs

Sexual Exploitation

•Brothels, nail bars, massage parlours, night clubs, residential homes, child abuse images

•Children trafficked for other forms will often also be vulnerable to sexual exploitation

•Mainly girls 12-17, although little research conducted about boys

•Most identified source areas are China, Eastern Europe, Africa, UK Nationals

Domestic Servitude • Working in domestic households • Responsible for all household chores

and caring for children • No education • Often suffering physical, sexual,

emotional abuse • African tradition which is being abused • Often living in private fostering

arrangement • Most identified source areas are East

and West Africa

Forced Labour • Restaurants, agriculture and

construction sites • Lour hours in hazardous conditions • Poor, cramped living conditions • Often expensive physical and sexual

abuse • Key source areas: East/West Africa,

Afghanistan, China, Vietnam

Enforced Criminality • Pick pocketing, ATM theft, DVD

selling, cannabis cultivation • Organised gangs • Controlled through debt bondage • Locked in homes • Key source areas: Vietnam

(cannabis), Eastern Europe (esp. Romania)

Fraud • Illegal adoptions, benefit fraud • Passed around communities • Bought illegally internationally • Child as commodity – vulnerable to

abuse • Key source areas: Africa, China

Forced Marriage

• Mainly girls trafficking in to and out of UK

• Forced to marry older men, or to help others gain legal status

• Vulnerable to domestic servitude and sexual exploitation

• Key source areas: Pakistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh

Key issues • Culture of disbelief • Immigration issue rather than child protection • Identification • Multi agency safeguarding response • Safe and secure accommodation • Carers with parental responsibility • Robust Care Plan • Age assessment • Access to legal professionals • Prosecution rather than protection • Poor prosecution of traffickers themselves

3 small steps

• Guardianship • Child victims of trafficking alone in

foreign land without support from trusted adults

• Huge variations in level of support provided

• No one with parental responsibility • No one to provide guidance • ECPAT UK calling for a system of

guardianship to be introduced across country

• UK current in breach of international obligations

3 small steps

• Anti Trafficking Commissioner • Lack of reliable data about trafficking • No independent oversight of Government’s anti-trafficking

activity • 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking

in Human Beings

3 small steps

• Safe Accommodation • Hugely important issue • Big variations in quality of

care • Far too many children go

missing once placed in care

• Need for implementation of common principles

Get involved

• ECPAT UK exists to campaign • We need your help • Visit our website • Constant stream of actions that you can take

Thank you

www.ecpat.org.uk 0207 233 9887 info@ecpat.org.uk c.walker@ecpat.org.uk