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Slavery days
Human trafficking is on the rise, and its not just confined to the sex trade. More and more people are being brought to the UK to be forced into labour, tending cannabis farms and even for their organs to be harvested. Ryan Gallagher reports
They prey on the vulnerable often by duping them with fake job advertisements promising cash and a pathway to a better life. But eventually the facade slips and for the victims a brighter future is never the outcome. Some end up forced into prostitution or put to work in secret cannabis farms, others even coerced into selling their own internal organs. It is an increasing problem that has been compared to modern day slavery: human trafficking in Britain today. Earlier this month, a comprehensive report on the scale of human trafficking in the UK was published, the first of its kind. A collaborative effort between police and government departments in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it outlined that there could be more than 2,000 potential victims of human trafficking spread around Britain with almost 1,000 referred to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in 2011 alone. Among them: men, women and children from countries including Nigeria, China, Vietnam, Romania and Slovakia. Brought into the country often via budget airlines by criminal gangs, some operating out of Eastern Europe, the victims end up scattered across the country. There were 213 potential trafficking victims in the north reported to SOCA in 2011, compared with 258 in London. The majority of these were adult women trafficked for sex. But the
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report also found rising incidences of labour and criminal exploitation, where trafficked people were lured to Britain before being coerced into working long hours for little or no pay, sometimes in factories or farms, with their passports confiscated so they were unable to leave. These numbers are just the tip of an iceberg, says Tamlin Vickers, parliamentary affairs manager for the Human Trafficking Foundation, a charity that raises awareness about trafficking. Its also clear that the number of victims of trafficking is on the rise and all the figures will show that. Its happening as a result of the improving ability of the traffickers to ply their trade in an increasingly globalised world where movement of people and of capital is easier. Trafficking victims is getting easier and more lucrative. The government report disclosed that last year authorities reported finding the first so-called organ harvesting cases linked to trafficking. These involved traffickers bringing two victims to the UK whose kidneys they intended to sell on. Fortunately, the victims were identified before the organs had been removed. But the question is whether others have not been so lucky. When it comes to sexual exploitation, the most prevalent type of trafficking, the perpetrators are often crime gangs in Eastern Europe who dupe young women with fake job advertisements. One such case was uncovered by Greater

Manchester Police, resulting in the convictions of Romanian father and son Bogdan and Marius Nejloveanu last year. The pair had tricked women into coming to Britain by offering restaurant work, before forcing them to become prostitutes in brothels in Birmingham and Manchester. The victims were forced to work six or seven days a week, with up to eight or 10 clients a night. If the women did not comply with clients demands, they were beaten and raped. Another trend being reported across Europe involves trafficking of men for labour exploitation. According to police, traffickers particularly target vulnerable men at homeless shelters and soup kitchens, where they offer the men a job, accommodation and cash. Once hooked in, the men are often moved to reside in cramped or unsafe conditions and put to work for long hours with little or no food or pay, trafficked in and out of the UK to continental Europe and Scandinavia. Over the last five years and

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beyond theres been a steady increase in the proportion of victims of forced labour as opposed to victims of sexual exploitation, Vickers says. What you find is men brought into the country with a promise of working either on a farm or in a factory who find themselves in a position of serious exploitation where they have documents taken away from them, It happens are not paid, and if as a result of they are paid they are paid far less a globalised than they were world where promised. They find themselves in movement real need and in a of people is position of modern easier. day slavery. Four Liverpool men were arrested by the UK Border Agency last year after they were accused of having lured and exploited workers from overseas on the promise of a better life. Among the four were two taxi drivers, whose licences were suspended by Sefton Council pending an investigation.

In a separate case in 2010 three members of a Harrogate family were convicted of trafficking nine men to work in the Rajput Restaurant. Raza Ali Khan, Shahnawaz Ali Khan and Perveen Khan were jailed for between three and four years after a judge at Leeds Crown Court said their victims had been deceived by promises of attractive wages and working conditions in the UK and were subjected to conditions of neglect, abuse, deprivation and economic exploitation. Jantine Werdmuller, global project officer at international campaign group Stop The Traffik, says forced labour can sometimes involve cannabis farms. In residential homes but also in larger properties there are cannabis farms and the people that run them often traffic people just lock them inside the house, turn off the lights and make sure that they do the work, she says. Police have also identified this as a problem, with SOCA reporting in August that it had found Vietnamese children being criminally exploited

HIDDEN CRIME
Because human trafficking is a complex and often hidden crime, the true scale of it globally is difficult to determine. The latest estimate by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), published in June, suggests that there are nearly 21 million victims of forced labour, including forced sexual exploitation, with an estimated 5.5 million trafficked children. The ILO estimates that the profits of traffickers worldwide are in excess of 20 billion each year. Though UK authorities say they identified more than 2,000 potential trafficking victims in 2011, there were just 142 defendants charged with offences related to human trafficking in 2011-12, of whom two thirds were prosecuted. The covert and cross-border nature of the crime gangs behind trafficking mean it can sometimes be difficult to track them down. In an attempt to address this, Scotland Yards trafficking unit has formed joint international investigation teams, currently with police in Poland and Bulgaria.

Young women are often lured by criminal gangs through fake job ads and made to work in brothels Photo: Getty

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Police have reported Vietnamese children being exploited in cannabis factories Photo: Rodger Bosch/AFP/GettyImages

Just lock them inside the house, turn off the lights and make sure they do the work.
PAWNS IN A GAME
In some cases, trafficking victims end up being coerced or forced into committing crimes in the UK. This can lead to them being arrested and convicted, with police unaware that they are in fact dealing with a victim of human trafficking. The Serious Organised Crime Agency acknowledges: Those who are criminally exploited (for example in cannabis factories or through theft) may be considered as criminals rather than victims. Tamlin Vickers, parliamentary affairs manager for the Human Trafficking Foundation, says this is a problem that needs to be addressed. We need to all work to ensure that the victims of trafficking arent considered the culprits and we need to instead go after the big guys, he says. One of the real tragedies is that the victim is often forced to carry out criminal activity and as such is pursued by the police and prosecuted as a culprit of a given crime. But actually what were talking about is somebody who is a victim, somebody who is a pawn in a much larger game.

in UK-based cannabis factories. Cases involving trafficking victims being forced to commit crime are on the rise, police statistics show. In particular, reflecting a trend across Europe, growing numbers of children are being forced into crime, such as street begging. Stop The Traffik says it has found examples of domestic servitude involving children, where young people have been brought to England and put to work in houses where they have suffered neglect and abuse. One such case was uncovered by the group earlier this year, when a youth worker identified a boy who had been taken from Nigeria aged 11 and brought to London. He was made to stay with a woman he had never met before, who he said forced him to get up at 6am each day to do chores and beat him if he hadnt done a good job. The boy was eventually made homeless but has recently been placed in a safe house. Other children have suffered a similarly distressing fate in England at the hands of traffickers. At a Worcester farm in October 2010, for instance, seven Romanian children aged between nine and 15 were found being forced to work as labourers without food or water in near freezing conditions. Coram Childrens Legal Centre (CCLC), a national childrens rights

charity, believes the number of victims is likely to be much higher than official figures because many potential victims are not identified or are not believed when they come forward. The government needs to ensure that effective systems and training are in place so that potential child victims of trafficking are consistently identified, says Kamena Dorling, policy and programmes manager with the CCLCs Migrant Childrens Project. It also needs to ensure that all potential victims are properly supported and protected and it must work to reduce the disturbingly high number of trafficked children going missing from local authority care. The government recently adopted a new EU directive on preventing and combating human trafficking, which includes a commitment to tackle forced labour, organ removal and child exploitation. A new national crime agency set to launch next year will focus heavily on tackling the issue as part of its UK-wide remit. We have already made significant progress in the fight against trafficking but the government is not complacent and we will continue to work to improve and strengthen our approach to keep pace with emerging threats, says immigration minister Mark Harper.
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