MP says time to act to prevent 1.2 million children every year being trafficked globally by taking “Three Small Steps” to protect victims

28/02/2008

Mike Hancock, MP (Lib Dem – Portsmouth South) today said that the UK must act to help stop the global trafficking in children. This follows a report by the children’s rights charity ECPAT UK and UNICEF (The United Nations’ Children’s Fund) estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked around the world each year. The report describes the UK as “significant transit and destination country for trafficked children.”

The UNICEF/ECPAT report goes on to say: “In 2007, the UK Government announced that 330 child victims of trafficking had been identified over an 18-month period; of these 183 went missing from social services care. Child trafficking is largely a hidden crime, so the true number of children trafficked into the UK is likely to be much larger. No one knows the actual number of children who have been trafficked into the UK, some destined to work in the sex industry, as domestic servants and in sweatshops. Even if trafficked children are identified, their care and protection is inconsistent, ad hoc and, in some regions, completely absent.”

This week on Wednesday 27th February, Mike gave his support to the Parliamentary launch of the “Three Small Steps to Protect Child Victims of Trafficking” campaign. The campaign, led by ECPAT UK is calling on the Government to withdraw:

• Its general reservation on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on immigration and nationality
  The UK Reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that the UK will not be bound by the Convention in matters concerning children under immigration control, and therefore accepts no responsibility for upholding their rights. This is in contradiction to the CRC’s principles of non-discrimination and regard for the best interests of the child. It also throws into doubt whether actions by the UK Government to tackle child trafficking will be in the best interests of the victims themselves, ensuring their care and protection.

• To ratify the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings

• And to appoint an independent Child Trafficking Watchdog (Rapporteur). Darren Bennett, past winner of the highly successful BBC One show ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and supporter of children’s rights demonstrated to MPs how to take “Three Small Steps” with a difference by doing a short Salsa routine. He also gave pedometers to all attending MPs to help them measure their ‘Three Small Steps’.

Mike Hancock said: “The campaign calls are really just three small steps in the context of how much needs to be done to better protect child victims of trafficking, but their achievement will speed up progress in many other areas of their care and protection. The British Government should now take these steps to show that we as a nation are serious about tackling this issue. I will be doing all that I can as an MP to campaign for them to do so.” Some progress has already been made on two of the campaign calls - on 14 January the Government announced that it will review the UK reservation on immigration and nationality on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and that it will ratify the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings by the end of 2008. Christine Beddoe, Director of ECPAT UK, said, “We welcome the Government’s decision to review the UK reservation on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on immigration and nationality, but the review must be carried out with transparency and the views of all those consulted must be given equal weight.”

Notes: ECPAT UK (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) is a UK registered charity and the UK national representative of the global ECPAT movement with partner organisations in over 70 countries around the world campaigning against the commercial sexual exploitation of children, including child trafficking. In the UK ECPAT UK represents a coalition of eight leading charities. They are Anti-Slavery International, Jubilee Campaign, NSPCC, Save the Children UK, The Children’s Society, UNICEF UK, World Vision UK, and The Body Shop Foundation.

The report referred to can be obtained from http://www.ecpat.org.uk/downloads/RightsHere_RightsNow.pdf