Anti-Trafficking report points to the danger of leading on border policing when protection and welfare should be the first concerns

The group came into existence in May 2009, one month after the UK’s had commenced enactment of its obligations under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings which it signed up to in December 2008.

The central tenet of the Convention is the fact that people who have been trafficked are not themselves criminals but are in fact the victims of a crime against their person and their fundamental human rights. This being the case, the task was that of rescue, protection, and obtaining redress for those who had undergone this horrific experience. 

Unfortunately there were reasons to be concerned that the Home Office, under Jacqui Smith at the time, didn’t quite see it that way. Smith signalled her concern that the Convention would operate as a shield for irregular migration and that the UK would become a magnet for more illegal entrants.

The government failed to make any provision for monitoring the effectiveness of the measures they intended to take to meet their obligations under the Convention, so this task was undertaken on their own initiative by a group of nine UK-based organisations concerned with the welfare of the victims of trafficking.  This led to the formation of the ATMG (go to their website).

The group focused its attention on what is called the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). This is supposed to provide the means by which voluntary organisations, local authorities, police agencies and others, could collaborate in the tasks of identifying people who had been trafficked and ensure they received the appropriate support. Each NRM is supposed to be tailored to the circumstances of the country operating the mechanism; but nevertheless experience has shown that it works best when the lead agencies are closest to the ground in the localities where trafficked people are found, and when its core ethos is that of protection and welfare.

So, what does the ATMG think of the UK’s performance?  Unfortunately for the government, their first report is not so much critical as damning of much of the work of the official anti-trafficking activities run by the lead body, the UK Border Agency. To read the summary report click hereand to read the full reportclick here.

The group looked at the 527 potential victims of trafficking which the UK Human Trafficking Centre reported as being considered under the NRM between April and December 2009. This is regarded by expert organisations as under-reporting of the real extent of the problem. Victim support organisations reported a further 130 cases during this period where the individuals concerned chose not to go through the NRM process. This was because they did not see any benefit in terms of protection, or were fearful of being brought to the attention of the authorities.

The system of identifying victims of trafficking is considered gravely flawed. Drawing on the experience of other countries, the process of identification is seen to work best when it draws on multi-agency experience working close to the problem. In the UK this approach is eschewed with the work of a ‘Competent Body’ being preferred instead. This ‘Competent Body’ is made up of designated officials of the UK Border Agency.

According to the report the rigours of an immigration control mentality get in the way of good decision-making when it comes to identifying trafficked victims. The recognition rate for people from countries outside the EU who had been referred to the Competent Body is a mere 11.9 per cent. In contrast, when suspected victims had British nationality 76 per cent were positively identified as victims of trafficking. Somewhere in between these figures, when the individual was an EU national and therefore exempt from strict immigration control, the recognition rate ran at 29.2 per cent.

The report finds that one-third of the individuals considered under the NRM were children.  Of these, 85 were girls UK and 58 boys. Half were under the age of 16. 45 girls were trafficked for sexual exploitation, and 2 boys. 41 boys and 25 girls were found were to be in other types of forced labour, including domestic servitude. 

The welfare of these children is already the responsibility of an established system of children protection across the UK, with local authority social services having the pivotal role. Yet in setting up procedures to consider the plight of children suspected of being trafficked the government chose to bypass these structures and to invest all decision-making powers in its UKBA Competent Body. The report finds that even when dealing with children the UKBA officials were inclined to belief most readily that they were dealing with individuals who had committed criminal acts. Widespread concern exists amongst child protection organisations that the UKBA is not inclined to give any benefit of doubt to the young people whose cases they are considering, even when required by their own policy guidelines.

The full report of the ATMG lists 27 recommendations which point the way for a complete overhaul of the UK system to bring it in line with the standards of compliance required by the European Convention. These include:

• The reconstruction of the NRM so that it functions as a genuine multi-agency operation;
• Bring identification procedures much closer to the plight of the victims on a devolved, regional and local basis;
• Introduce a capacity for independent review of all negative decisions;
• Protect victims from prosecution for crimes committed whilst under the control of traffickers and their collaborators;
• Establish a watchdog structure, along the lines of the Dutch model of a national rapporteur on trafficking.

The report represents a formidable critique of the UK’s performance on the protection of victims of trafficking to date, and a direct and urgent challenge to the new government to get this one right in the very near future.