Dee Doocey

Child trafficking in the UK

Here we are, six years into the twenty-first century - yet would you believe that one of the greatest scandals in Britain today is still child slavery? It remains a big problem but the responsible authorities have barely begun to deal with it.

There are alarming numbers of children being brought into this country as domestic slaves. Many are only 10 years old, yet they are put to work as unpaid childminders and cleaners or even cultivating cannabis. Many of them are forced, Oliver Twist style, into street crime. Others are used for benefit fraud and some are sexually exploited.

Parents are persuaded to send their children to the UK with promises of their child getting a good education, but instead, these children are condemned to a life of slavery in a foreign country where they don't even speak the language.

PALADIN - A WAY FORWARD

The system is totally unequipped to deal with the problem of child trafficking. However, the example of the Paladin team at Heathrow Airport shows what can be achieved.

Three years ago, a pilot project was run at Heathrow called Operation Paladin Child. In the three months that it was running, 1,800 unaccompanied children came through the airport. The team judged that at least one in three of these children were vulnerable - nearly half of who were aged under eleven.

There's now a small Paladin team working at Heathrow. I spent a day with them recently, and was shocked to hear of what they are uncovering. The two case studies below highlight some of the shocking details.

In the meantime, the Paladin team has to work with its hands tied behind its backs. Its budget is highly vulnerable. It comes out of the general - and heavily stretched - Metropolitan Police budget and could easily be cut. Paladin must have independent funding. The team must also be given the resources to build up its presence at other points of entry.

'UNACCOMPANIED MINORS'

The Paladin team's work is not helped by the disgraceful 'unaccompanied minor' policies of the airlines and other transport companies, whose only interest seems to be making money. The rules for transporting children under sixteen must be tightened drastically.

On most airlines, children over the age of 12 can travel unaccompanied (at the full adult fare), with no checks on where they go when they arrive at their destination. If the parents of 'unaccompanied minors' want their children to be accompanied by the airline, they must pay a supplementary fee for every 'flight zone', which puts the price out of the reach of most parents. The only exception is Virgin Airlines, where the minimum age is 15. On Eurostar trains, French children travelling to Britain can be unaccompanied at any age, provided they have a letter from the mayor of their town.

CONFERENCE DEBATE

The recent Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton passed a motion on ending slavery and trafficking. I successfully proposed an amendment dealing with the problem of child trafficking. (The text of the amended motion, including my amendment, is here:

http://tinyurl.com/vv7n4).

While the original motion rightly highlighted some appalling abuses of human rights in general - and of children's rights in particular - my amendment called for more protection for children who are brought into Britain as domestic slaves.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

The way we treat our children defines us as a society. It is totally unacceptable that there is still child slavery in this country. It can and must be stopped.

I am determined to shame the government into taking action on this disgraceful practice and have set up an online petition at www.deedoocey.com

We need as many signatures as possible to make the government take this issue seriously. Please sign yourself and, if possible, forward this message to everyone in your address book asking them to do the same. If you produce your own blog or e-newsletter, please link to my website to encourage more people to sign.

CHILD TRAFFICKING - CASE STUDY 1

Soloman is a 16-year old youth from Africa.

In 2005, his family told him that he was going to England for an education. He went with an agent by truck to Cape Town in South Africa, where he and another fourteen African boys and girls were put into a container at night and loaded onto a ship. After about two days without food or water, they were let out of the container at night, to find that the ship was at sea.

During the voyage, they were let out only at night, and the crew repeatedly raped the girls and sodomised the boys.

On arrival in England, the children were smuggled out of the docks in the boots of cars. Soloman was taken to a house in North London, where he was again raped.

His uncle collected him from this house and took him to the Midlands, where Soloman made an asylum claim. This allowed him to obtain a small flat, paid for by social services, where he and his uncle lived. His uncle took him to an employment agency, where the uncle was obviously known, and Soloman started work in a factory. The uncle supplied illegal documentation and insisted on being given all of Soloman's wages weekly.

Often, the uncle would bring other African youths to the flat and they would stay for a few days before moving on.

After about six months, Soloman became increasingly upset that he was not in education but, when he broached the subject, his uncle beat him. A week later, his uncle received some mail, which he showed to Soloman. It was a photograph of his mother, dead from gunshot wounds. His uncle warned him that he would have to carry on working, otherwise the rest of his family would receive the same treatment.

After another beating a week later, Soloman ran away and, after receiving treatment at the local hospital, he told them his story and was then referred to social services (under an assumed name).

Soloman was too scared of the consequences for himself and his family to assist police with an investigation and prosecution.

CHILD TRAFFICKING - CASE STUDY 2

In May 2004, a Saudi Airlines flight from Pakistan via Jeddah landed at Heathrow Terminal 3. Among the passengers were Johar Shah and Alia Kanwal with three Afghani children.

Kanwal and the children were travelling on a legitimate passport issued to Shah's wife and her three children, although a photo of Kanwal had replaced that of the real Mrs. Shah.

After the group came through arrivals, the youngest child, a girl aged about seven, either became separated or ran away and was subsequently found by airport staff. This must have been a very distressing and frightening experience for a young child with no English in the busiest terminal of the world's busiest airport.

A Saudi Airline security tag was the only item of property in the young girl's possession and an employee of that airline identified the family group that she had arrived with. A check on this group's tickets indicated that they had return flights booked for the 4th June. The girl was taken into the care of Hillingdon Social Services and arrangements were made to secure all the relevant CCTV footage.

Two days later, Shah and Kanwal changed the return portion of their ticket and were identified by the same Saudi Airline employee as they attempted to check in for their return flight without any children.

Both were arrested for child abandonment. During interview, Shah admitted having brought the three children into the country for £2,000 and Kanwal had likewise been paid to aid the deception.

Shah provided names and contact details for the three adults who were each meeting one of the children. He claimed that he had assumed these contacts were relatives, even though he did not know the children, who were given to him by an agent at Peshawar airport.

Both Shah and Kanwal denied abandoning the youngest girl but, throughout the course of 24 hours of interviewing, their stories continually changed. It seems likely that the girl became separated from them upon arrival and that the couple had abandoned her rather than draw attention to themselves by looking for her.

They stated that the two older children were met in the car park, one by his brother and the other, a 12-year old girl, by her husband, who it would appear married her when she was only eight years old.

The abandoned girl was interviewed but was unable to provide any useful information.

Telephone subscriber checks were carried out for the 'greeter's' numbers and, when these came back with London addresses, enquiries were made at these addresses in an attempt to locate the two missing children. Occupants of the addresses denied any knowledge of the missing children.

The address for the 12-year old girl was that of an Internet cafe frequented by Afghanis, with two empty flats upstairs.

Shah and Kanwal were later charged with facilitation offences. At Isleworth Crown Court, they both pleaded guilty. Shah was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment and Kanwal to 15 months.

An Afghani male claimed the abandoned girl to be his daughter and it would appear that she had been smuggled into the UK to assist him in an abuse of the asylum system. He is a failed asylum seeker and, now he has a seven-year old dependent, he will not be deported for at least ten years.

Despite extensive enquiries, neither of the missing children has been located and their fate is unknown.