Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

It is an honour and a privilege to speak in the parliamentary debate on such a great historic occasion. I found the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Brent, South (Ms Butler) deeply moving. I am sure that their ancestors will be looking down with pride on their great-great grandchildren. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). His exposition of the life of Wilberforce was a tour de force. I thought for a moment that I had strayed into a viva voce examination for a PhD thesis, such was his aplomb in dealing with interventions on all sorts of historic details. I hope that I shall not be tested on my historical knowledge to the same extent, and that I shall not be found wanting. I should like to speak briefly about the issue that the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) raised, and that confronts us today in the United Kingdom and Europe—the modern-day slave trade of human trafficking. Through the phenomenon of globalisation, victims are lured to this country by promises of work. They are then effectively enslaved into sex work. The Home Office figure for the number of women and girls who have been trafficked here is estimated to be 4,000. The Home Office probably minimises the figure, so perhaps the true number is much higher. One of the problems with ascertaining figures is that we are considering a secret trade. That makes it hard to glean numbers. I pay tribute to the Government for agreeing to sign the Council of Europe convention against human trafficking. It is the first step to according victims the status of victim rather than that of immigration offender. However, unlike 200 years ago, when Wilberforce and Parliament led the world, today we lag behind other parts of Europe in our treatment of victims. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, they are certainly victims. He cited the tragic case of the 15-year-old Lithuanian girl who was lured by the promise of a summer job selling ice creams in Sheffield but was then sold on and on, and brutally raped on many occasions. Last year, I hosted the launch of an Amnesty International report entitled ““Stolen Smiles””. It catalogues the abuses suffered by women trafficked for sexual slavery across Europe. The author, Cathy Zimmerman of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, had interviewed 207 women in 14 European countries, aged between 15 and 45. The majority were between 18 and 25. I was deeply shocked by the report. To my surprise, a huge number of the women had suffered serious head injuries from brutal beatings by the people who imprisoned them. Another interesting finding showed that 60 per cent. of the women had been physically and/or sexually abused in their home country before being trafficked. That perhaps indicates that the trafficked women who arrive on our shores and at our airports were already vulnerable women in their home countries. We are not talking about well educated girls and women—those with college degrees and experience of the world. We are talking about women who come predominantly from rural areas where huge numbers of people are unemployed. That is one of the factors that push women out to seek a better life for themselves. However, to return to the figures, 95 per cent. of such women are physically and/or sexually abused during their trafficking experience. Let me list some of the examples of suffering that were given to the researchers. Some were kicked while pregnant. Others were burned with cigarettes. One was choked with fire. Another had a gun held to her head. We simply cannot imagine what that must feel like, or the physical and psychological damage that those women endure on their journeys and at their destination in this and other countries. It is unsurprising that those women suffer long-term physical and psychological consequences. More than half of them had symptom levels suggesting post-traumatic stress disorder—levels that we normally see in people who have suffered extreme terror or extremely violent events. They suffered headaches, fatigue, dizziness or memory loss equivalent to what the most acute 10 per cent. of sufferers in the population experience. One interesting aspect of the research was that they were re-interviewed and that that showed that their physical health improved after between 30 and 60 days in the care of non-governmental organisations or medical services and social services, but that it took longer for their mental health to improve. It improved after 90 to 100 days—after about 3 months in care. That research is vital if we want to know about what the practical realities of ratifying the convention will be. Clearly, if such women are so psychologically and physically damaged, there will be implications if we want them to participate in the legal and administrative process by, for example, naming their attackers or enslavers and by co-operating with the authorities in order to bring those evil people to justice. Such women need time to recover their faculties and their emotional strength. Specialist health services are needed, too, as these women are a unique type of victim of crime. Last year, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, conducted a major inquiry into human trafficking. The subsequent report was published in October 2006, and I recommend it to Members. One of the recommendations was to do with the signing of the convention, of course, but the report also stated that we should look beyond the minimum reflection period of 30 days, and the Amnesty report gives us reasons why these women need more time to learn to trust the authorities. One of the issues that the inquiry uncovered was the lack of specialist legal advice and, in the case of children, the lack of specialist support for ““an appropriate adult””—to use the legal term. We found that there was a wide variety of organisations and people—NGOs, police officers, Home Office officials and immigration officials—who could deal with people who had been trafficked, but that there was a lack of a joined-up and co-ordinated approach from those different agencies. We also heard that during Operation Pentameter—the big police operation of last summer—there was unequal protection for victims. We heard anecdotal evidence that European Union citizens who had been trafficked were able to receive housing benefit, unlike victims from non-EU countries, and that people from outside the EU had to claim asylum in order to get the minimum level of support. There is a lack of awareness among immigration staff. Some of the people who were being picked up were being treated as immigration offenders, instead of victims of this vile crime. When we sign the European convention, repatriation will breach the principle of non-return under articles 13 and 14 of the convention. I am curious to hear from the Minister about the statistical research, and specifically about the 4,000 figure given by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker). As far as I can see, that has not been formally published, and I think everyone involved in this debate would be interested to know about the statistical basis on which such figures have been extrapolated.