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Hundreds of women and children are trafficked into the United Kingdom
each year. Lured through promises of good, well-paid jobs they instead
are forced through the threat or use of violence into slavery in
the UK and other European Union countries.
On 3 December 2001, 6:30pm in the Boothroyd Room, Portcullis
House, Victoria Embankment, London, ECPAT UK is presenting its new
report What the Professionals Know: The Trafficking of Children
into and Through the UK for Sexual Purposes. Anti-Slavery International
will talk on measures needed to combat this violation of human rights.
Neil Gerrard MP is chairing the meeting.
The new report contains case studies and interviews with the police,
immigration officials, Social Services, lawyers, academics, journalists
and members of relevant non-governmental and child care organisations.
"Children are being forced into prostitution in the UK
and across Europe. They are controlled through terror and severely
abused. This must be stopped," Carron Somerset of ECPAT
UK says.
Even though trafficking has been a problem for at least a decade
in the UK, there is no domestic legislation prohibiting it.
Traffickers are currently tried under the Sex Offenders Act,
1956, which fails to consider the victim's severe ill treatment
and imposes shorter sentences than those for some drug offences.
The high profit, low penalty character of trafficking contributes
to its apparent increase.
"The British Government is ill-equipped to deal with human
trafficking. Anti-trafficking legislation which protects and supports
victims needs to be introduced as a matter of priority,"
Mike Kaye of Anti-Slavery International says.
Trafficking has spread slavery to every continent and most countries;
2 December is the
United Nations International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.
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