Spot The Signs...

As has been said before on this blog, there are very likely to be victims of human trafficking in the town or city that you live or work in.

CCAT (Croydon Community Against Trafficking) has produced a list of potential signs of Human Trafficking that we can all be watching out for in our communities. So, with their permission, I thought it might be helpful to share it here also:

1. People, usually youngsters or children, who rarely come out of a house except with a guardian and speak little or no English

2. Faces that can be seen at windows often looking stressed and never smiling

3. House or flat curtains closed during much of the day

4. Home delivery meals that result in excessive packaging left outside e.g. lots of pizza boxes

5. Frequent visitors to residential premises, often a stream of men arriving and leaving at unusual times.

6. Cars or minibuses picking up foreign nationals at unusual times.

7. Places where 'special services' are offered at a low price often advertised as having particular ethnicity and where the "workers" appear underage or speak no or little English.

8. Teenage girls who seen unhappy, living with older, unrelated males, who drive them about.

9. Commercial premises (including restaurants) that survive despite a clear lack of regular business.

10. Youngsters collected at the school gate by different people each day who are clearly not the parents or grand-parents.

11. Low price deals offered at the door involving cheap labour and invariably for cash, e.g. offers for a new drive or new paving.

This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but things that we can all be watching for in our communities and neighbourhoods.

Together we can create communities that do not tolerate human trafficking and expolitation.

If you see anything that you think might be suspicious you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. They will then assess whether there is a crime being committed.

Silence

Silence [sahy-luhns] noun

1. Absence of any sound or noise; stillness.

2. The state or fact of being silent; muteness.

3. Absence or omission of mention, comment, or expressed concern

4. The state of being forgotten; oblivion

5. Concealment; secrecy.

There is injustice happening in our world every minute of every day but yet we choose to be silent. We choose to be mute, we choose for there to be an absence of any sound, we choose to continue the secrecy and we choose not to mention, comment or express concern. We choose to forget.

In a society where we have so many ways to communicate, where information is constantly at our fingertips, it is incredible what we will stay silent about.

Many of us know that there are over 27 million slaves in the world today, that there are more people in slavery today than in the time of Wilberforce. But somehow we are already beginning to become immune to this shocking fact.

We seem to continue our lives seemingly so unaffected.

But we have a voice and we have the choice to speak or to remain silent; a choice that is denied to 27 million other people in this world.

Surely those of us who have a voice have a responsibility to speak out for the voiceless.

So often we don’t. We choose silence.

Silence caused by apathy, inertia, discouragement as we focus on our own comforts, become overwhelmed by the issue or turn a blind eye.

But yet when we remain silent we become a part of the problem, not a part of the solution.

We line ourselves up in agreement with the traffickers and abusers. We agree with their actions through our silence. We allow injustice to continue.

When we consider it this way, silence is not an option. We have to use our voice to fight for the rights of the voiceless. We have to use our voice to restore justice where there is injustice. We have to use our voice to bring light to dark places. We have to use our voice to bring freedom where there is slavery.

I’d challenge you to find a way to use your voice today for those who have no voice.

Lets break through the silence.

Thoughts on Skyfall

 

There was an interesting moment in Skyfall as a beautiful looking woman who had been portrayed as extremely powerful had a conversation with Bond where he remarked on the bodyguards observing her every move. He then pointed out her tattoo mark on her wrist that showed him that she was 'owned' and used as sex slave by a trafficker. At this point she began to display her extreme terror hiding behind the perfect presentation. 

This scene is helpful to rattle some myths around trafficking including the myth that trafficked survivors always look pathetic and needy and can be rescued by whisking them away to a ‘happy ever after’. 

However, that one aspect is the only positive point in the issue around human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

The terror that came across her face as she began to question James bond’s rescue suggestions was painful to watch and realistic in expressing the extreme panic of facing the seemingly impossible task of ever hoping or trusting again. What would safe, trust, rescue or hope even look like?

To see her rush off, looking 'confident and purposeful' whilst being surrounded by intimidating men watching her every move was difficult and reveals the complexity of the task of rescuing trafficked people. This is why we need professionals and intelligence in rescue operations.

In contrast, the scene where she is having a shower and James bond enters that shower and they kiss passionately is a shocking, unrealistic, horrific and wrong portrayal of any human’s reaction when they have endured being sold, used, manipulated and abused by others. She could have shown many realistic reactions such as horror, fear, freezing, robotic emotionless responses, anger, tears, running away, fighting, shock, staring, etc but not relaxing into the arms of a man who she had met in the bar. 

Trust in another person would take a long time to build and would need proving.Trust in a powerful man would almost definitely take longer. 

To see her kissing Bond with no negative responses of fear or shock only informs the audience that women can't help but respond to a handsome resucer and will easily trust others quickly. This is extremely unhelpful in the work by professionals to try to explain the horrific powerlessness of people trapped by fear, terror and manipulation in the pain of sexual exploitation. 

This scene is appalling, not factually correct and totally detrimental to the understanding of the recovery from trafficking or sexual exploitation. 

A trafficked person usually has to recover from the terror of threats that are used to manipulate and control, the confusion of broken promises, loss of autonomy, loss of personhood, loss of trust and hope… and this can take years of strategic, therapeutic care, support and help from people dedicated to supporting them through a tough journey.

Trafficked Children Toolkit

Enabling early identification of trafficked children and supporting quicker and better protection

The ‘Trafficked Children Toolkit’ was developed by the London Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). It is designed to assist professionals and volunteers across all agencies and NGOs who are involved in safeguarding or promoting the welfare of trafficked and/or exploited children.

The toolkit has been incorporated in ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, the statutory UK child protection guidance published by the Department for Education and has been endorsed in the UK government’s strategy on human trafficking (Human Trafficking: The Government’s Strategy).

The toolkit aims to help practitioners:

      1. Identify and assess the needs of children who are suspected of being trafficked and the ongoing risks they may face

      2. Understand how to refer cases to the competent authority and other relevant agencies

The Toolkit is recognised as best practice amongst many professionals working with trafficked children.

Philip Ishola, lead chair of the LSCB Child Trafficking Group and chair of the LSCB 2012 Olympics (safe games for children) Group was instrumental in the development of the Trafficked Children Toolkit.

The Treehouse Project is pleased to be hosting FREE training by Philip Ishola on ‘Identifying and Supporting Child Victims of Human Trafficking’

The training will be taking place in Bath on Friday 26^th October and is open to all professionals and volunteers who may be involved in identifying, safeguarding or supporting trafficked children.

The day will run from 10am-2pm and will include a free lunch with an opportunity to network with people from other organisations.

For further information or to reserve a place please email admin@trc-uk.org

For a copy of the Trafficked Children Toolkit please visit

www.londonscb.gov.uk/files/2010/trafficking/london_safeguarding_trafficked_children_tools_mar_2011.pdf

Encouraging Communities

Yesterday evening I watched the television coverage of the London 2012 closing ceremony. Before the ceremony began there were various short pieces reviewing the London Olympics and all that had happened. Near the end there was a piece on the impact on London. As the presenter talked he described how Londoners, who have a reputation as being unfriendly, had come together to watch the games and celebrate Team GBs successes. He described people from different sectors of society talking to each other and sharing these exciting times. As I saw the images of communities coming together I felt encouraged. If we can hold onto this community spirit and cohesion, I believe it could help us see an end to Human Trafficking.

As people in communities in the UK come together and different parts of the community begin to dialogue there is new hope for men, women and children trafficked into the UK and from the UK.

I read recently of a young man who was trafficked into Ireland. He had been working as a chef at a restaurant in Pakistan when an Irish customer complemented him on his cooking and offered him a job in Ireland working at his restaurant. He was told that he would earn 300-400 euros per week and he accepted the job in the belief that it would be better than the job he already had. His new employer arranged the necessary work visa and he arrived in Ireland and started work immediately. This is when the truth of his situation became apparent. He was forced to work from 8am to 2am the following morning, 7 days per week. His work included delivering take-away menus to housing estates, working as a chef, cleaning dishes and delivering take-away meals to customers. He received 150 euros per week but his employer kept back 100 euros ‘to cover the cost of his work permit’. Verbal abuse, physical intimidation and threats of deportation were used and his passport disappeared. He found himself a victim of human trafficking and labour exploitation, earning just 50 euros per week, owing his employer a never-ending debt and having no means to escape.

What struck me when I read this story was the number of people in the local community who must have seen him; as he delivered leaflets, worked in the take-away and delivered food. But yet no one reached out to him, no one got to know him and no one noticed anything suspicious. His situation eventually become known to local police following a minor workplace accident and he was rescued.

There are likely to be victims of human trafficking in the cities and towns we live in. We need to know the people in our communities.

Young men, particularly from Vietnam, are trafficked into the UK to work in ‘cannabis farms’. The traffickers set up these ‘cannabis farms’ in houses in towns and cities across the country. The house usually looks normal from the outside but inside has been converted to create a giant hot-house for growing cannabis. Victims of trafficking are then forced to work as ‘gardeners’ in these houses. Tell tale signs that a house could be used for growing cannabis can include:

- Paranoid behaviour and excessive fortification (internal and external)

- Silver ducting tape hanging out of windows.

- Gas cylinders.

- Bin bags filled with vegetation.

- Pungent smell.

- Humidity - condensation on windows.

- Powerful lights on day and night.

- Blocked out windows.

- Unusual amount of activity when tenants first move in.

- A large number of visitors (day and night).

- Noise.

Source: Cannabis Farms: The Dangers and Tell-tale Signs for Landlords, Direct Line

If we know our neighbours and are aware of what could be going on in our communities and we react to things we see that are suspicious we will have a chance of helping victims of human trafficking.

This is why I was excited to hear about Londoners talking to each other, about communities coming together. It sounds like a nice thing and encouraging it can sound trite, but when people live isolated self-focused lives we are creating an easier environment for traffickers to operate.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing crime, but if we come together in communities and decide that this is not going to happen on our doorsteps then maybe together we can reverse that trend.

If you see anything that you think might be suspicious you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. They will then assess whether there is a crime being committed.

Child Trafficking: The UK Picture

Overview

Human Trafficking is defined as:

‘The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or a position of vulnerability, or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal or organs’.

(source: Article 3, Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)

Human Trafficking is a growing problem, with the UK recognised as a significant transit and destination country for trafficked women and young people. They are trafficked for a variety of reasons, primarily sexual exploitation, forced labour and cannabis cultivation.

The full scale of the problem is unknown but the NRM (national referral mechanism) reported 1481 potential cases of human trafficking in the UK between 1st April 2010 and 31st March 2011 (source: NRM Statistical Data April 2009 to March 2011 Report, www.soca.gov.uk).

The International Organisation for Migration reported that 62% of the victims they assisted in 2011 were under 18 (source: IOM 2011 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures and Trends).

Child Trafficking

In October 2011 CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) published a report entitled ‘Child Trafficking Update’ that gave data on reported cases of child trafficking between 1^st January 2011 and 15^th September 2011.

The figures from the report help highlight the problem within the UK, especially when we remember that this does not represent the full extent of the problem but only reports on those victims that were identified by agencies such as CEOP and NSPCC CTAIL.

The report shows that in just under nine months 202 children were identified as being trafficked into or within the UK.

The table below shows the source region and gender for these 202 children:

 

202 Children	67 from Africa	48 African girls
		19 African boys
	63 from Asia	20 Asian girls
		43 Asian boys
	50 from Eastern Europe	32 Eastern European girls
		18 Eastern European boys
	22 from other/unknown	17 other/unknown girls
		5 other/unknown boys

Child victims of human trafficking are those victims that were under 18 when they were trafficked and exploited. For some victims their age is unknown as they do not know their own age and the Competent Authority is unable to establish an exact age.

The following table shows the ages of the 202 children by geographical region.

Age	Africa	Asia	Eastern Europe	Other/Unknown	Total
Under 5	2	0	6	0	8
5-7	3	0	4	2	9
8-10	9	0	8	1	18
11-13	7	4	7	0	18
14-16	28	45	20	13	106
17	18	14	5	5	42

The exploitation of the trafficked children can be broken down into 6 main areas, however many victims experience multiple types of exploitation, for example a child exploited for benefit fraud may also be forced into criminality. The 6 main types of child exploitation are:

1. Benefit Fraud – children are trafficked into the UK for the purposes of claiming benefits. A child is often moved between multiple addresses and benefits are claimed under multiple fake identities. 

2. Cannabis Cultivation – young people are forced to work as ‘gardeners’ in ‘cannabis farms’. These farms are often in converted residential houses. 

3.Criminal Exploitation – children are trafficked into the UK and then forced into criminal activities such as pick-pocketing and shop-lifting in order to create an income for their exploiter. 

4. Domestic Servitude – this is an often very hidden form of child exploitation, happening behind closed doors with victims being kept out of sight. 

5. Labour Exploitation – children are trafficked for the purposes of forced labour. They are made to work in agriculture, hospitality, construction and nail bars. 

6. Sexual Exploitation – children trafficked into and within the UK are forced into sexual exploitation in order to gain an income for their exploiters. They are often forced to work under the threat of a debt-bondage and physical violence.

The following table shows the primary exploitation type for the 202 children and the split by gender and region for each type of exploitation:

  

Exploitation Type	Number of Children	Gender		Region
		Male	Female	Africa	Asia	E Europe	Other
Benefit Fraud	23	56.5%	43.5%	21.7%		78.3%
Cannabis Cultivation	21	85.7%	14.3%		100%
Criminal Exploitation	15	28.6%	71.4%	7.1%		92.9%
Domestic Servitude	23	45.5%	54.5%	68.2%	22.7%		9.1%
Labour Exploitation	56	55.8%	44.2%	10%	38%	52%
Sexual Exploitation	53		100%	56.8%	17%	20.5%	4.5%

 

These figures make stark reading. We need to understand the UK picture so that we can respond appropriately. The Treehouse Project is one such response.

The Treehouse Project is an after-care service in the UK for survivors of Human Trafficking. The project focuses on the rehabilitation of children and young people who have been the victims of trafficking. The project aims to provide therapeutic aftercare through counselling, befriending, education and accommodation.

For further reading, the full CEOP report can be found at http://www.ceop.police.uk/Documents/ceopdocs/child_trafficking_update_2011.pdf