The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) referred to my amendment 138, which is mainly what I wish to address. However, I fully endorse what the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said about the amendments standing in his name and the wider issue of consent, which is also touched upon in amendment 143.
Amendment 138 aims to make good a clear deficit in the Government’s provision in the Bill for a statutory defence. That defence is inadequate and certainly is not fit to deal with the position of children. The amendment seeks to change that so that child victims of trafficking would be fully protected. Clearly, children have already suffered if they are detained in the process, and if they find themselves subject to a prosecution or even the speculation about a prosecution. That becomes traumatic for children who have come through trafficking, slavery or exploitation, as it would for any victim. So it would be wrong to have a requirement that children have to show that there was compulsion—that should not exist in law. The presence of any other means including compulsion should be irrelevant when defining a child as a victim of trafficking or exploitation. Children in such a situation will be frightened, confused and traumatised. They should not face further isolation and distress and all the other psychological pressures as they go through what will be to them a fairly unknown process.
Despite the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines, children are still prosecuted. It should be an imperative for us in this legislation to stop that from occurring in the future, and this Bill provides us with an opportunity to do that.
I point out to the Minister that in July the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the Government, in relation to trafficked children and to all children covered by the optional protocol on the sale of children, to establish
“a clear obligation of non-prosecution in the criminal justice system and ensuring that [children] are treated as victims rather than criminals by law enforcement and judicial authorities.”
Basically, that is what amendment 138 tries to do; it tries to bring the Bill up to that standard. However, I recognise that there is the wrinkle in relation to schedule 3, and for that reason amendment 138 addresses a very important issue that needs to be considered further. I will not be pressing the matter to a Division, because, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has said, there is an outstanding issue in connection with it.