Human trafficking has become a big concern in the UK. The cases of human trafficking reported in the UK mostly involve victims brought from other countries, but recently some cases of exploitation and trafficking have also been reported from within the UK. The scenario of human trafficking was described to be serious as the officers and ministers were termed as ‘clueless’in their response to tackling human trafficking, both into and
556Trafficking in Persons Report, 2013, Op cit. 557 Ibid.
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within the UK558. The Centre for Justice (CSJ), in its latest report published in 2013, has criticised government efforts in tackling human trafficking. The report says that more than 1000 victims of human trafficking were found in 2012, which included a significant number of British children559. The statistics provided in the report are given below:
Figure 6.1: Adults and Children in Modern Slavery in the UK - 2012560
The above graph paints a very grim picture of the state of human trafficking in the UK. Nearly 375 cases of trafficking and exploitation of adults were detected for sexual reasons. There were even around 100 such cases which were committed against children. Unknown reasons for the exploitation of children is the highest amongst all the forms of exploitation studied. There were 125 known cases of exploitation of children for known reasons.
The UK Human Trafficking Centre’s figure of 1200 cases of human trafficking in the UK was described by CSJ as ‘meaningless’561
. The head of the CSJ, Christian Guy,
558Helm, T. and Townsend, M. (2013), “'Shameful' failure to tackle slavery and human trafficking in the UK”, The
Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/mar/09/shameful-failure-slavery-trafficking-uk, accessed November 22, 2013.
559 “It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to fight modern slavery”, (2013), The Centre for Social
Justice, Belgrave Road, SW1V 1RB.
560 Ibid.
561Buchanan, M. (2013), “UK anti-trafficking efforts need overhaul, report says”, The BBC News,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21719778, (accessed November 25, 2013).
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Domestic Servitude Labour Exploitation Sexual Exploitation Unknown Exploitation Adult Children
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commented, ‘From top to bottom, this thing is a catastrophic failure. Politically, I'm afraid ministers are clueless about the scale of British slavery’.
Lack of awareness about the measures taken by the government to prevent trafficking and protect victims was widespread amongst social workers as well as police officers. A Deputy Chief Constable recalled that once a girl managed to free herself from the clutches of traffickers and reached a nearby police station. As she did not have a passport and valid documents to stay in the UK, she was arrested for being an illegal migrant in the country. In yet another instance, in a gathering of social workers only a couple of them were aware of the national referral mechanism, the government’s system of identifying and protecting victims of suspected human trafficking. The lack of political motivation to tackle human trafficking was considered to be a major obstacle in anti-trafficking efforts by a detective officer. The officer reported that at present human trafficking is not associated with the performance of police departments and as long as it is the case, there is no incentive for a police officer in investigating cases of human trafficking seriously562. Some of the cases reported from the UK are listed below:
Danielle was only 15 years old when she decided to move to London from Albania to join a friend who was offered a job here. It was after her arrival in London that she was taken to Birmingham, where she was sold to an Albanian pimp for £3,500. She escaped from their captivity; however, her ordeal has changed her life forever563.
Sky News published an interview with a victim of human trafficking,Shopie (not her real name) in March 2013564. The interview revealed some shocking accounts of the treatment of victims of trafficking. Shopie told the reporter that she made a living in a high class society in the UK. She was trapped by a person from Italy who first became her boyfriend. Their relationship lasted five years during which she was groomed to become closer to her boyfriend. After their five year relationship, Shopie went on a holiday to Italy with her boyfriend, where he revealed his true intentions. He locked her up and forced her into prostitution. She recalled that at times she had to have sex with more than 35 different
562Helm, T. and Townsend, M. (2013), Op cit. 563Ibid.
564Suchet, R. (2013), “Sex Trafficking Victims 'Failed' By Authorities”, Sky News,
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people in one night. Her exploitation was not limited to sexual things. She was required to do all household chores and was punished for minor mistakes she committed in doing so. She was threatened for her life, as well as for the life of her 13 year old brother in England. The most shocking thing about her ordeal was that when she managed to run away from there she was questioned by the authorities in the most insensitive manner. One officer even told her that in future she should not do that again. According to Shopie, it is wrong to perceive that traffickers target only poor and uneducated girls from third world countries. Instead, she considered them to be professional businessmen who have been in this business for a long time. They first groom a girl, isolate her from others and then they go for the kill. They invest their money and time on a girl to reap multiple benefits from her in future565.
A 26 year old man named Mark Ovenden spent nine months enslaved by his boss, who took him to different locations in Southern England and Sweden, from where he was eventually freed by the police. Mark was contacted by a person in a street and was offered a job that included a decent salary, lodging and food. However, he was forced to work 18 hours a day, six days a week, includingheavy manual labour. He was not paid a penny. The daily food, lodging and isolation from others, diminished his desire to leave the work place566.
Jess and Hannah were two UK-born school girls who too became victims of human trafficking. A group of young men met both of them and started flattering them. In no time, both the girls were forced to provide sexual pleasures to these men and their older friends. On one weekend they were driven to a flat and were told to have sex with who so ever arrived there. Jess, who was menstruating, was allowed to sit outside, but Hannah had to have sex with nearly 90 people over the weekend567.
The illegal nature of human trafficking makes it difficult to discover some of its obvious and visible signs in many cases. The problem gets compounded in cases of children where social workers have to put in extra efforts to convince victims to divulge details about their
565 Ibid.
566Buchanan, M. (2013), Op cit. 567 Ibid.
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exploitation. Child trafficking is often seen as related to unaccompanied children as many such children are closely followed by their agents. As a child travelling alone does not raise many eyebrows traffickers assume it to be a safe bet to traffic children in this manner568.
A report by ECPAT UK states that six Angolan girls were accommodated and supported by a social services organisation. However, there were a number of older men who were often found to be hanging around these girls. Sometimes they pretended to be just boyfriends. One of these girls was even sexually assaulted by one of the men. In another case it was discovered that a 16 year old Romanian girl was paying her subsistence to a male agent who had brought her to England. The man had threatened that he would kill her family in Vietnam if she refused to part with her money. In yet another case, a 16 year old Congolese girl was found to be a domestic slave of a family. However, when investigations were made, the girl was moved to the woman’s sister in the North of the country. The details of the case are still not known569.
A Romanian girl aged 19, who had already endured physical and sexual abuse from her alcoholic father, was introduced by an “acquaintance” to a man who offered her a job as a housekeeper/salesperson in the UK. When she arrived in the UK, the man sold her to a pimp and Lila was forced into prostitution. She was threatened that she would be sent home in pieces if she did not follow every order. After an attempted escape, her papers were confiscated and the beatings became more frequent and brutal. Months later, after being re-trafficked several times, Lila was freed in a police raid. She was eventually repatriated back to Romania where, after two months, she fled from a shelter where she had been staying. Her whereabouts are unknown570.
A group of women from the Baltic States were repeatedly recorded on CCTV shoplifting in supermarkets in the South of England. The recordings showed a man that seemed to be supervising the group. The police raided the flat where the women were staying and found
568 Somerset, C. (2004), “Cause for Concern? London Social Services and Child Trafficking”, End Child
Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking (ECPAT), London.
569 Ibid.
570 “Trafficking in Persons Report” (2008), Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons,
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that they were all sleeping in one room. The flat was very basic and none of the stolen goods were found on the premises. The women denied knowing the man that appeared to be the supervisor and seemed anxious, afraid and intimidated. In an informal talk with a translator, they seemed ashamed of what they were doing and said that they had come to work, but the work they were promised was not available when they arrived. Care workers from Bulgaria paid £2000 for jobs to be arranged in the UK, which was then deducted from their wages and included very high interest rate charges. A Polish woman was told that according to the law in the UK she had to pay £300 as part of facilitating a job as an au- pair571.
Katerina was a student in Romania. She built up a friendship with a friend of a friend named Alex, who invited her to the UK and told her that she could stay at his house; he would even help her with the air fare. When she arrived in the UK, Katerina was held prisoner in a flat where she was repeatedly beaten and raped. Alex told her that she could have her freedom, but she would have to work as a prostitute to pay back the money that he had paid to bring her here. Katerina eventually gave in and began work, paying all of the money she made to Alex. Katerina was forced to return to work in the sex industry for over a year until Alex decided that he would sell her on to some other men. While trying to carry out the transaction Alex was arrested572.