It is a real privilege for me to attend this award ceremony tonight in honour of someone who has worked so tirelessly and with such dedication and determination to combat the trafficking of women and girls into sexual exploitation in Albania.

I am particularly pleased to have been asked to present this award because, as some of you will be aware, until quite recently I had the Metropolitan Police lead for combating trafficking in the Met and had the pleasure of working with colleagues from the Home Office, and from statutory and voluntary organisations in a multi-agency approach to improving intelligence, co-ordination of operations and support for victims.

I was asked if I would speak for a few minutes about the police perspective on trafficking and outline some of the policing initiatives in this area. My comments will necessarily be restricted to the London picture because this is where my experience is, but this, of course, does not mean that the problem is unique to the capital; indeed far from it and a senior colleague of mine, Chief Constable Tim Brain from Gloucestershire, who has the national police lead for vice issues, is doing a lot to try to raise awareness of trafficking nationally. Interestingly, one of the challenges issued by him to police forces at a recent National Vice Conference was to scope the degree and nature of the commercial sex industry within their policing areas, including the degree that trafficking had affected it. One of the results has been a significant increase in proactive police operations with NGO support conducted elsewhere in the UK, e.g., in Kent, Northumbria, Bedfordshire and West Yorkshire to name only a few counties. That will give you an idea of the scale of this appalling crime in the UK.

If you add to this the much increased focus in the media around trafficking issues, it is clear that trafficking is moving up the political and policing agendas. You've only got to look at the number of significant reports and publications in the past 18 months including the Governments White Paper,: Secure Borders, Safe Havens; Anti- Slavery International's: Human Traffic Human Rights; the Met Police Authority Report Trafficking in Human Beings for Sexual Exploitation; the Home Office Crime Reduction Toolkit: People Trafficking; and Unicef's Stop The Traffic, not to mention the Home Office pilot project in conjunction with Eaves Housing to realise how much greater is the understanding and recognition of this appalling crime. Of course, no room for complacency and we must now capitalise on this greater awareness and strive to make greater efforts to prevent the trafficking and provide much better support for both victims and their families.

As far as London is concerned, within the Metropolitan Police, the Clubs and Vice Unit (12 officers) is responsible for combating trafficking. They have a wealth of experience in this area, and it is upon this that I draw, in making these comments. Their focus is very much on placing victims first and their experience shows that between 75 per cent and 85 per cent of the women working as sex workers in flats and saunas in Central London are not UK nationals. A current snap shot of the vice industry gained from their most recent intelligence gathering operation showed that some 20 per cent were from the Balkans, 15 per cent from the Baltic States, 10 per cent from Ukraine, 10 per cent from the Russian Federation and Commonwealth of Independent States, six per cent from Romania and the remaining 17 per cent from a range of other central European countries. Clearly, not all are trafficked victims, but out of almost 300 women illegally working in the commercial sex industry dealt with by the unit this year, some 15 came from Albania. Of even more concern, of the 10 juveniles found in brothels and saunas, four were Albanian.

I'm pleased to say that officers from the Clubs and Vice Unit have played a significant role in the training of law enforcement officers in key source and transit countries including Ukraine, Moldova, Belorussia and the Russian Federation. This has included officers contributing to seminars in these countries as well as an exchange visit to the UK by police officers from Moldova under the sponsorship of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). And only last month, officers from the Clubs and Vice Unit visited Albania on a fact finding trip together with representatives from the Immigration Service, Home Office and Eaves Housing. During this visit, they made contact with the IOM, counter trafficking units and visited a refuge. So the right links are being forged -- links between law enforcement organisations and NGOs -- this partnership is critical.

On the good news front, recently the Clubs and Vice Unit was successful in bringing to justice two Albanian traffickers who received custodial sentences of 10 years and six years. In fact the offences for which they were found guilty were living off immoral earnings, rape and drugs offences, but nevertheless, some reasonable sentences to send out strong messages to those who engage in this abhorrent activity.

Some of the challenges for police engaged in combating trafficking are that this area of criminality thrives on a cycle of abuse, which is difficult to break. The primary control factor is often fear, fear of violence against themselves or their families, through to a fear of exposure in their country of origin. This of course makes a victim often extremely reluctant to give evidence. And this is exacerbated by the victim being unfamiliar with the country in which she is living, unable to speak the language or know how to seek help. So there is a real challenge to create conditions where victims can feel confident to speak to police at all. It is even harder to create the conditions where they are confident enough to testify.

Then of course there are the immediate welfare needs of the victim, which are always more complicated than they might seem involving not only immediate health and emotional care, but al housing, financial support and formalising their legal status in the UK.

Assuming then that the victim is able and willing to provide sufficient evidence to make arrests and a prosecution possible, the next challenge is to present her as a credible witness. I'm afraid it is all too easy and common to discredit witnesses in vice cases, particularly as the victim will often have entered the UK by deception which will of course be portrayed as lying. My officers will do everything they can to reduce the impact of the judicial system on the victim for example by using the same section of the Crown Prosecution Service or by applying for the victim to give evidence from behind screens. Indeed, as each operation develops, contacts are made both amongst other law enforcement agencies and NGOs. In many cases we can now guarantee that should a survivor of trafficking wish to have to return to their country of origin, they will be met either by law enforcement officers who are sympathetic or by an appropriate NGO. This reduced the possibility of the individual will fall back into the hands of her trafficker.

By definition, targeting the traffickers is a challenge. This is not only because of the cross border nature of this form of criminality but combating trafficking crosses at least five areas of responsibility: social policy, immigration issues, organised crime, international policy issues and victim support. And in addition, huge profits can be made from the exploitation of vulnerable victims. But progress is being made in our ability to damage those involved in the trafficking of humans and more importantly in protecting those who are exploited. It is satisfying to see exploiters jailed but it is even more rewarding to see survivors of these serious offenders getting their lives together and making real progress as has happened in a number of cases with which Clubs and Vice Unit have been involved.

Which of course brings me back full cycle to Vera Lesko, who individually and through her organisation, The Hearth, has done so much to help and support trafficked women and girls in Albania. As a police officer who has been involved in this area of law enforcement, but probably even more importantly, as a woman, I offer you on behalf of all the women and children you have helped and on behalf of everybody here, my heartfelt gratitude for your determination, perseverance and the fact that you cared enough to do something about this appalling crime.

Thank you.