Slavery

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I join him in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, on initiating this debate on such an important topic. She has great experience and industry in this field and we learn a great deal from her speeches. I wish to speak about the exploitation of human beings as commodities in the wretched modern trade of trafficking. I do so for two reasons. First, I am the descendant of a slave. Seven generations ago, Robert Wedderburn was born in Jamaica in 1763. He was the son of a slave, Rosanna, who was owned by my reprobate ancestor James. However, James at least had the decency—if it is decency—to free the boy at birth. Unhappily, there is no record in the official book of the Wedderburns, which is available, because, despite my discussions with him, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, in whose family possession and control the book now exists, has indicated that no amendment will be made to the purified and whiter than white history which is regarded as official. Fortunately, distant relatives and friends, both in Scotland and in France, have revealed this truth and there is quite a literature about it. I hope your Lordships will not think it self-indulgent of me to refer to this personal history. Robert is in my mind today. When he was 11, he saw his mother flogged when she was pregnant and his grandmother flogged near to death. He would have said many things to us about what I now turn to as my major point. If he were alive today, his sharp eyes for injustice—expressed in the book, which has been reprinted, on the history of slavery—would have noticed and heard about the dreadful trafficking in human beings which is going on under our noses as we sit in this grand legislative Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich,whose speech I greatly look forward to, told us on 7 December of the slaves who are trafficked under our noses into Britain. He told us of the source of the estimate by the Council of Europe that a staggering $42 billion is involved in the trafficking of persons, especially of women and girls for sexual purposes, which happens across our borders. He said: "““Nearer home, it is rather worryingly reported that an average of 100 unaccompanied minors come through UK immigration at Lunar House in Croydon each week””.—[Official Report, 7/12/06; cols. 1259-60]" Your Lordships also have the benefit of a remarkable report that the Joint Committee on Human Rights published in October entitled Human Trafficking. The Joint Committee has done us a most valuable service in this report, and I hope that the Government have taken due heed of it. The committee refers to the scale of trafficking, which comes mainly from Albania, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Thailand, Africa and elsewhere. It describes in detail policies which other countries have taken heed of to mitigate this dreadful tsunami of slaves which hits our beaches every week. The main policy it distinguishes in detail is that pursued in Italy since a law passed in 1998. Italian policies against sexual exploitation of these wretched slaves are based upon protection of and co-operation with the victims, plus vigorous prosecution of their captors. Italy totally rejects the criminalisation of the women, who are forced to work for sex on the streets. The report further adds at paragraph 195 that the clear harmony of the Italian law with human rights principles, "““has had a profound influence on our thinking about human trafficking policy within the U.K., and we commend it as a model for our own Government in developing its strategy against human trafficking. We further urge the Government to conduct its own research into the effectiveness of the Italian approach””." If ever a report justified a visit by the committee to Venice, this is it, and your Lordships must take account of it. Government advisers, I am sure, have drawn the attention of Ministers to the five detailed headings of paragraph 198 and Chapter 7 of the report which, were there time, I would be happy to quote in full. I ask the Minister without any hostility what research and measures based on the Italian approach the Government are planning to institute in the immediate future. That would answer one aspect of the question of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts—why on earth we do not ratify the European Convention. These are questions which the Government must answer. I hope that the good news which so many sermons tell us that we can accept at Christmas will be followed by good news from the government Front Bench when the Minister replies.