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Sex Trafficking, 21st Century Slavery?

The inaugural East Barnet Anglican-Methodist Partnership Social Justice Lecture, on the above subject, was attended by about 120 people on Tuesday 22nd April in St Mary’s Church. Revd Colin Smith introduced Dr Tim Brain, Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, whom he had known since their days together at Aberystwyth University, Dr Brain reading History and Colin reading Law – now look where they’d each ended up!

The Chief Constable began by saying that Human Trafficking was a very broad subject and only got into the headlines when a tragedy occurred, such as at Morecambe Bay. His particular concern was Sex Trafficking, where the key words were exploitation and coercion. Last year, 2007, saw the 200th anniversary of the Act abolishing Slavery in the British Empire, although it is only now that we have UN protocols outlawing slavery. But it still exists. Up until the last decade of the 20th century, this country had the wrong legal framework to deal with modern slavery, particularly sex trafficking, which is a form of slavery because it involves enforced exploitation of a commodity, in this case human beings, who when they get to their destination have no choice but to do what they are told to do by their gangmasters.

 

 

He explained something of the difference between trafficking and people smuggling, which generally had little to do with sex trafficking. In sex trafficking, there is deceit involved, as many of those trafficked expect to come here to work legally, to earn money which they can keep and they expect to be well treated. In fact what happens is that there are overheads. People are brought into the country, not smuggled, and they have to pay for this. A debt bond of many thousands of pounds is created that has to be paid off, but in practice never is, as there are also the daily overheads of rent, food etc. As their allure fades, so does their value and they get sold on, along with their debt bond. Most of these people are young women, but increasingly are boys in their mid-teens, who, in this country, are still legally children. Many are from South-east Asia, but increasingly now come from Africa, South America and Eastern Europe.

 

So what can be done about the trafficking? There is no legal offence in being a prostitute, but it is illegal to loiter or solicit in a public place. The offences are living off the earnings of prostitution and in human trafficking. The UN Palermo Protocol 2000, which came into effect in 2003, has a broad water-tight definition of trafficking, which it says is a form of slavery. The UK Sexual Offences Act of 2003 is legally comprehensive, but police still have to prove intent, which can be difficult. The police need to de-construct the whole trafficking chain, which can be difficult as the organisers will often live abroad, but they do now have the power to seize assets that cannot be proved to be legally gained. There is an economic cycle of Need, Opportunity, Demand and Reward, that needs to be broken at all four points.

Operation Pentameter took place in 2006 and was the first proactive policing operation to simultaneously involve all 55 forces in the UK. It resulted in 515 premises being visited, 188 victims of trafficking from 22 different countries (primarily Eastern Europe, China/South- East Asia, Africa or Brazil) being recovered, many going into rescue centres. 232 people were arrested and 134 charged with a variety of offences. They were also actively pursuing millions of pounds of assets, world-wide.

Trafficking is a serious organised crime and is core police business. The United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre which was established in 2006, provides support and guidance to both law enforcement and partner agencies. At the same time Pentameter 2 was initiated and will build upon the success of Pentameter 1. To bring the problem closer to home the Chief Constable finally read out a few of the adverts from one of the local papers,

Colin Smith thanked Dr Brain for raising our awareness of sex trafficking and said that we could now begin to think about what we as churches in East Barnet could do. 

Martin Horton