Safety fears for women rescued in UK raid

The treatment of 19 women suspected of being trafficked and rescued in a police raid in Birmingham, has raised serious concerns.

Those who were non-EU citizens were held in a detention centre; none of them was referred to a specialist shelter, despite police suspecting they were trafficked.

On 4 October, the Home Office announced that six of the women would be removed the following day. Thanks to pressure from Anti-Slavery International and other activists, their removal was temporarily suspended.

Because the UK has no guaranteed protection for trafficked people, and has not signed the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, the treatment of people suspected of being trafficked is uncertain. This exposes them to inappropriate treatment by the authorities and to re-trafficking. It is vital the Government signs the Convention to ensure protection for suspected trafficked people.

Landowner pays forced labourers back wages

A landowner in Brazil was charged with employing slave labour on his farm and was made to pay workers US$157,000 in back wages.

Odilon Ferreira Garcia forced 171 people to work on his tomato farm in "conditions akin to slavery", the Ministry of Labour said. They were freed at the end of September in a raid by the government's mobile inspection unit.

The workers were held as bonded labour, forced to work to pay off debts Garcia claimed they owed for food and supplies purchased at his store.

The inspection unit found over 500 promissory notes detailing workers' debts, many without their signatures.

Thousands of people are enslaved as bonded labour in Brazil, forced to work under the pretext that they owe money for transportation, accommodation and the basic necessities and tools they have had to buy. Since January almost 3,000 forced labourers have been freed in Brazil and over $1.8 million paid in back wages, the Government said.

Ghana's child cocoa workers promised official help

The Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) announced it would help resettle some of the children removed from hazardous labour in the country's cocoa farms.

The 4 October statement is part of Cocobod's efforts to meet the requirements of international certification, in order to avoid the threat of an international boycott of Ghanaian cocoa.

Throughout 2005, monitoring of child labour has been carried out in five of Ghana's districts, four of which are cocoa producing, representing approximately 8 per cent of total cocoa production.

Earlier this year, large-scale trials of a new monitoring system were launched in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire covering 80,000 small farms. Research carried out in 2001 found that over 200,000 children were working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in West Africa.

Chinese export company uses prison labour

Six of the world's leading banks have bought shares in a company that uses Chinese prison labour, reports say.

Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS are among the top 10 shareholders of Henan Rebecca, a leading wig manufacturer and exporter, The South China Morning Post reported in August.

Guards at Xuchang County Labour Re-education Camp and No. 3 Labour Re-education Camp confirmed inmates carried out low-skilled processing for Henan Rebecca, a claim supported by workers at the company. The work involved sorting and plaiting hair before being turned into wigs.

Under international law, work carried out through laojiao, labour through re-education, is classed as forced labour because inmates may not choose whether or not they work and they usually are not paid.

Laojiao inmates are typically made to work 16 hour days producing an array of goods; those who cannot meet the quota, activists say, are sometimes given electric shock or other abuse.

The banks deny any direct stock holding, though it is understood they acted as purchasing agents through investment schemes. Most of Henan Rebecca's wigs are exported to countries in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as to the United States, which prohibits the import of products made using forced labour.

The company denies the accusation and has invited the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre to investigate.

Togo anti-trafficking law raises hopes for protecting children

Togo's parliament passed a law criminalising child trafficking marking an important step forward in the country's effort to clamp down on this abuse.

Under the new law, passed in July, traffickers face up to five years in prison and fines ranging from 500,000 to 10 million CFA (US$1,000-$20,000). If the child is subject to violence, disappears or dies, the sentence is doubled to 10 years. The law applies to traffickers regardless of where the children are taken to or from. Prior to this, traffickers were held only for a few days with no penalties.

Parliament's move follows the United States Government ranking Togo in Tier three of the 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report, reserved for the worst offenders which face sanctions if they fail to take action against trafficking.

Although child rights activists welcome the new law, there are concerns that it fails to provide measures to help children once they have been found. It is also a missed opportunity for the Government to address trafficking as a whole, rather than limiting it to children.

Last year, 3,000 children were intercepted at the border as they were being trafficked to Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon and Ghana, Togo's Ministry of Social Affairs said. Each year tens of thousands of children as young as five years old are trafficked across West and Central Africa into a range of work, including as domestics, market sellers, in fishing, agriculture, begging and prostitution.