Slavery

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for introducing the debate and also pay tribute to her amazing, extraordinary bravery in going to places where few people would dare to tread. We admire her great faith and courage. A recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime concludes that no country is immune to human trafficking, be it as a country of origin, destination or transit. The report points out that, after narcotics, human trafficking equals arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world and is fast-growing. It is strange to think that only 100 years ago there was a general feeling that the world was becoming a better place and that people were improving their behaviour. They had obviously forgotten that the potential for evil by mankind is seemingly without limit. As the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Liverpool implied, it is likely that there are more slaves today than there were 200 years ago. The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, kindly mentioned that, in a debate on the NHS on9 December, I drew attention to the existence and extent of this trafficking. Someone was overheard to say, ““What on earth has that to do with the health debate?””. It has a great deal to do with it. I wish to emphasise the exploitative nature of trafficking. People are taken by force or coerced from their homes and put into slavery. First, they are deprived of their freedom—their freedom of choice, then their freedom of movement, then their dignity—by deceptionand violence and, ultimately, they are deprived of their life. Why would a person agree to leave their home with a trafficker? First of all, there is the promise of work for poor and uneducated people; secondly, perhaps, there is the opportunity to study; thirdly, there is the chance to travel; and, fourthly, they may do it because of cultural practices. Traffickers regularly exploit the cultural norms of a society. For instance, in Nigeria, it is common for a child to move away from their parents for a period during their early teens, to live and work with extended family members. Depending on where the extended family lives, a child can besent to the next village, another city or, in a few exceptional cases, another country. It has become clear that traffickers exploit that either through kidnapping the child en route or approaching the extended family to purchase the child from them. In order to combat this plague in this country, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, Operation Pentameter was launched earlier this year. That brought to light about 72 trafficked females in different parts of the UK, 12 of whom were minors. They had been forced to work against their will in brothels or massage parlours, and they came from19 countries worldwide. One of them was a girl of15 from Lithuania, who had been lured to the United Kingdom on the false promise of a summer job selling ice cream but was herded from brothel to brothel by gangs and individuals. She was sold seven times in the space of three months. After she had been freed, she said that she had run out of tears and that, although she tries to forget, she still has nightmares. The deputy chief constable in charge of Operation Pentameter said that teenage virgins will fetch as much as £4,000 on the open market, whereas a39 year-old may command only £500. Mrs Caroline Spelman, in a debate initiated in another place byMr Anthony Steen, pointed out that, in the United Kingdom, the average earnings of a trafficked prostitute for his or her pimp are £100,000 per year. Operation Pentameter has evolved into the Human Trafficking Centre, which was set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers and has brought together all the involved parties, including lawyers, police, immigration officials and many others. Despite the Government’s welcome activities in trying to prevent trafficking, the problem is actually getting worse. Mr William Hague emphasised in a lecture last month to an international women’s human rights conference that we must target vulnerable women with information and education, warning them against the dangers of trafficking. Austrian embassies have stressed the danger of forced prostitution to women applying for visas to work in rather dubious locations. They are obliged to apply for a visa in person. The Estonian Government sponsored an essay competition for young people entitled. ““How could I fall into the hands of a trafficker?””. In order to prevent the trafficking of girls from Nepal to India for prostitution, an education charity provides skills in reading, maths and the dangers of trafficking. We must have more stringent law enforcement and greater co-operation between the police, especially in those countries of origin. Will the Government put pressure on the European Union to insist on effective law enforcement measures as a criterion for entry into the European Union? In order to try to reduce demand, the Australian federal police encourage men to call a special hotline anonymously if they suspect that a woman they have used is being forced to work as a prostitute. Will the Government do more to protect victims, as has already been suggested? I understand that there is only one government scheme, called the Poppy Project, which provides safe accommodation for only 35 females who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation. I, too, endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, asked the Government about: the Italian approach, which has been so successful. I also found his account of his ancestors very moving. Every country is involved in this slave trade, and all countries must join together to eradicate it. The movement that led to the abolition of the slave trade 200 years ago took some time, but today we must seek to abolish it much more quickly. We owe it to the millions who have been abused for so long.