Providing protection for child trafficking victims
May 24 2010 by Gwenda Thomas, Western Mail
For some youngsters in Wales child trafficking is a cruel reality. Gwenda Thomas, deputy minister for social services, looks at the problem
CHILD trafficking in Wales is a fact. It’s not a comfortable statement to absorb nor is it very believable at first sight.
I am sure that for many of you reading this it will be as far from reality as can be. But for some children in Wales it is cruel reality and that makes it a problem for us all.
We cannot hide behind our blinkered selves thinking that child trafficking is a problem for other countries or far away cities, it does happen here in our communities in Wales.
In a recent study by children’s protection organisation ECPAT for the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, 32 children met sufficient criteria to be identified as trafficked children – and in truth these numbers are probably only the tip of a large iceberg.
Human trafficking is an organised crime, whereas human smuggling is an immigration matter. Trafficked victims are coerced or deceived by the person arranging their relocation but when a victim is a child neither coercion or deception need be present for the child to be considered trafficked.
A trafficked child is a child that is denied his or her basic human rights and is forced into exploitation by the person into whose control he or she is delivered or sold.
Most children are trafficked for financial gain. Some trafficking is organised by gangs, in other cases individual adults or agents traffic children to the UK for their own personal gain such as sex work, domestic servitude, illegal adoption, forced marriage, or sweatshop and restaurant work.
Child trafficking is not only an international or cross-border issue it has been known for UK citizens to be trafficked within the UK – many for the sole purpose of sexual exploitation.
UK citizens who are subject to this internal trafficking tend to be girls aged between 12 and 16, some of whom are vulnerable as a result of family problems or disengagement with school.
I have been involved directly and indirectly with care and social services over many years and have been party to many distressing stories and accounts of abuse and exploitation, but the selling of children as commodities is beyond anything I can ever imagine. Take the experience of Dalal (not her real name), a young girl from China.
She told her support worker in Wales that she was given away as a child to foster parents because she was female. The foster parents later sold her to a trafficker in China who kept her locked up with many other girls.
Dalal was then passed on to a man who took her on a ship to another destination, where she was passed on to another man. This man kept Dalal locked up for some time – he did not harm her but she was made to watch videos of children being beaten.
He then brought her to the UK by plane and warned her to tell anyone who asked her age that she was 21, if she didn’t she would be returned to China.
When they arrived at Heathrow, Dalal hid in the lavatories until she was found by security. Dalal’s passport said she was 21, but she claimed to be 16. Dalal was treated as an adult and moved to Wales by the UK Border Agency where she was placed in accommodation with several adult females.
Child trafficking in Wales is a relatively recent phenomenon. The role of the Welsh Assembly Government is to provide leadership and guidance for those who have child protection responsibilities in the social, care and emergency services.
I established a multi-agency all-Wales trafficking group to consider how national and strategic action might help the relevant agencies in identifying and protecting these vulnerable children. Through this group I have commissioned an online interactive training programme to aid professionals in identifying and safeguarding trafficked children.
I will be considering what other action needs to be taken.
A critical issue that needs to be addressed is the level of public awareness and anything which contributes to this is to be welcomed. Tomorrow I will join Joyce Watson, chairwoman of the National Assembly’s group on the trafficking of women and children, at the Senedd to launch a report on local solutions to the trafficking of women and children in Wales.
It will be a welcome report and will add to the Assembly Government’s bank of knowledge about this largely hidden crime.
Gwenda Thomas is Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services
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