The Problem of Trafficking
Date: Wednesday, February 23 @ 23:39:09 EST
Topic: Human Trafficking


THIS DAY (NIGERIA) - AAGM: "I want to set out the wider picture of trafficking of men, women and children. Trafficking is not just a problem for children and it is not just a problem for Africa. Many know this is the case - but it is important that we place it on record.

In what I write here, I am drawing on the important work of the British Crown Prosecution Service, who are working to combat human trafficking, and from the work being done by the European network of prosecutors - Eurojust.

And I also draw on the information given to me by my constituents from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, from South London African community organisations such as Women of Nigeria International, African Families Foundation, South London African Women's organisation and the churches in Southwark - as well as the important work being done by UNICEF.

The crime of human trafficking has only recently begun to be widely understood. It is the crime of the trade in a commodity, which is more lucrative even than drugs, diamonds or weapons - and that is the trade in young women and children. It is modern day slavery and it is on the increase.

There are three particular areas of origin for human trafficking, Thailand and South East Asia;Eastern Europe; Africa - mostly West and East Human Trafficking is where people - mostly women and children (mostly girls between the ages of 12 -14) are tricked into enforced prostitution or slave labour - often domestic labour.

The tragedy is that most of the children who fall prey to trafficking do so because their parents want a better life for them - to help them escape from poverty or war. Or because they have lost their parents.

There is a long and honourable tradition of families in rural areas of Western Africa sending their children to the cities to get a better education - for "a better life".

I know this from first hand experience. The British Council arranged me a swap with a Tanzanian MP. We were chatting about family things and I told her I had three children. She told me she had 10. Three are her own children - the others are those of her two brothers who have died of AIDS. She is able to care for all those children. Others are less able to - and so people come to such families and say they can help with the problem of so many children and can arrange for some of the children to come to the UK for a better life. But the "better life" that human traffickers offer turns out to be anything but that.

AIDS and poverty have created many orphans and thereby a new supply of vulnerable children to be preyed on by traffickers.

And in West and East Africa, children are prey to traffickers. They pose as friends of the community. So a Nigerian woman in the UK, who may be working and who wants her daughter to join her in the UK will pay the man she thinks is a people smuggler $3,500 and get him to go to her village. They'll be expecting him and he'll pick up the child.

But the daughter never gets to London - instead she is taken to Germany and forced into prostitution. The trafficker tells the mother "It didn't work - I'll need another $3,500". The child never appears and the mother is too fearful to report her daughter as missing and seek help.

Young women, told of hotel jobs or work as hairdressers find instead that after they've been forced into prostitution - then able to send money back home - their family back home are better off and have a stake in them remaining in their degrading position.

The authorities deport women and children. A foundation working in Lagos came to see me at my constituency surgery. They told me that at Lagos airport they had seen a group of women who had been deported back to Lagos from Milan. They still had their big anoraks on as they sweltered in the Lagos heat. They were taken to the police station to be released. Within days they were staying at a house run by the traffickers and within weeks they were back on the streets of Milan.

African women in my constituency tell me that the victims of child trafficking are routinely subjected to violence as well as sexual abuse.

UNICEF estimates that each year, 1.2 million children are taken from their homes and trafficked into exploitation. They believe that there are thousands of trafficked children in the UK. They estimate that many trafficked children are among the 5,000 children in the sex trade in the UK.

What we clearly need to protect women and children from this fearful trade is:Work within the UK; Work between the EU member states and and Work between we in the UK and the countries of origin.

We need to work closely with the countries of origin like Nigeria to help tackle the problems which make children vulnerable to trafficking and to warn communities in Africa of the dangers that can face their children. And our starting point in this work must be that those who are trafficked are victims. It is not us who need protecting from them - but they who need protecting from the traffickers.

I salute the work of WOTCLEF and Her Excellency Chief (Mrs) Titi Atiku Abubakar. It is in everyone's interest and duty to work together against this most evil of crimes and bring a halt to this barbaric trade.

Harman MP is the British Government's Solicitor-General and the Member of Parliament for Peckham in South London. She is visiting Nigeria

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