Date: 26 March 2007
Dear All Chief Constables and Assistant Chief Constables,
As ACPO lead for child trafficking, I am writing to you to seek the assistance of your force in helping to better identify children suspected to have been trafficked, but who may have come to your attention through their participation in criminality.
Given the covert and hidden nature of child trafficking, the scale and nature of the problem is difficult to measure. This creates an obstacle to developing a proper response to this issue. What is clear, though, is that the proper identification of child victims of trafficking will help us to better protect this vulnerable group and also to pave the way to gathering better intelligence and a greater understanding of this matter. Police forces throughout England and Wales are in a unique position to help identify suspected child victims of trafficking..
Where trafficking activity is found - or suspected - it is often a secondary issue to the detection, investigation and prosecution of a range of offences ranging from vice, facilitation, fraud and cannabis cultivation. This is common given that trafficking activity is usually a supporting element to the commission of such criminal activity. In some cases there may be insufficient evidence to proceed on charges of trafficking. However, it is still important to consider the trafficking element to ensure that vital intelligence is not lost, nor are opportunities to help safeguard children and young people who may be victims themselves. This would help ensure that the varied forms of trafficking activity are better detected and dealt with in the future and most importantly, that child victims of trafficking are identified in order for their protection to be properly provided.
According to the UN definition of Child Trafficking, children are not able to consent to their own exploitation. This makes child trafficking distinctly different from the usual understanding of human trafficking, not least because it broadens the definition. Police forces need to be aware of the different shapes and forms that child trafficking can take. As our understanding and knowledge of the problem grows CEOP, the Home Office and other agencies will be able to provide forces with more guidance around this complicated subject.
Children have been found to have been trafficked to the UK from countries all around the world, as well as from the UK itself and for a range of reasons, including:
· sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and labour exploitation;
· engagement in a wide range of criminal activity such as cannabis cultivation, benefit and credit card fraud and various types of street crimes, .
Recent cases referred to me by a number of agencies and individuals have focussed on an apparent trend involving Vietnamese nationals (who are suspected to be children) who have been apprehended, prosecuted and convicted of offences pertaining to cannabis cultivation. It has been suggested that in some cases these children may have been the victim of a crime themselves, namely as a trafficked individual. To help ensure that the trafficking aspect is taken into account when investigating in these circumstances I would like all forces to consider implementing a policy that looks out for some basic indicators, which may point to the identification of the child as being the victim of trafficking. Such indicators should be both general and dynamic in order to properly reflect the changing trends of child trafficking. Such a policy should be developed in conjunction with your relevant social service authority who has the legal duty of care, where victims of child trafficking are identified.
At a minimum, symptoms should include noting whether the child is being exploited, or is intended to be used in an exploitative way. In terms of persons being found in exploitative situations, including cannabis factories, efforts should be made to ascertain the real and reliable ages of the persons recovered. Other information such as the level of wages they earn, whether they were in debt bondage to their “employer”, as well as a good understanding about the conditions under which they worked, should direct officers as to whether the individuals were being exploited. In terms of children, what would be recognised as “exploitation” should be cast wider. In terms of organised illegal industry such as cannabis cultivation, it would be safe to assume that children found to be working in such places are victims of exploitation.
Therefore, it is requested that children found working in cannabis factories and other such illegal and criminal activity, should be properly screened to identify whether they are child victims of trafficking. Considering the gravity of child trafficking and the recent raising of awareness around this issue, I hope that we can all work together in progressing our cumulative and joined up response to this issue. Raising awareness throughout our police forces is the first step in ensuring that law enforcement is as equally informed about this issue as other sectors that protect children.
CEOP is in the process of creating a child trafficking desk that will be responsible for constructing an annual threat assessment about the nature and scale of the problem of child trafficking, as well as for setting the strategic direction and policy on work to tackle this problem. Any information or intelligence on cases of child trafficking that your officers uncover or suspect should be retained until CEOP is in a position to start receiving this data; in this respect I will write to you again. In undertaking this role CEOP will work closely with the UK Human Trafficking Centre.
I would be happy to further consult with you in regard to your policy and to help you in anyway possible.
Yours faithfully,
Jim Gamble
ACPO Lead Child Trafficking
CEO Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre