Forced Labour: Current Issues and Debates

1. Forced Labour: Current Issues and Debates 09 January 2013 Sarah Lowe Senior Lawyer, EHRC

2. EHRC work • 2008 Inquiry into the working conditions in the meat and poultry processing sector • 2010 Inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland • 2012 Human Rights Review

3. Quantification • UKHTC – 2011 946 recorded potential victims • ATMG – additional victims not in UKHTC figures • ACPO – In 2012 of 30,000 in street prostitution 17,000 were migrant women and 2600 had been trafficked ( 9200 induced) • Home Office and Home Affairs Select Committee estimates 4000/5000 respectively

4. Commercial Sexual Exploitation – EHRC Inquiry • Growth in indoor prostitution • Demand for “new” sex and sex from exotic others – racialisation of sexual exploitation • Evidence of internal trafficking • Majority was intra community, victims being from traffickers own ethnic or national community

5. Commercial Sexual Exploitation – EHRC Inquiry • Private residences with facilities • Organised brothels • Transported as escorts • Significant physical and mental health issues • Escape by running away, accepting help from “client” or the police

6. Meat and Poultry Processing Inquiry • Evidence of widespread mistreatment and exploitation of migrant and agency workers • Physical and verbal abuse • Lack of proper health and safety protection • Little knowledge of their right • Affects both migrant and UK workers

7. Meat and Poultry Processing Inquiry • Inquiry found cases where treatment appeared to qualify as forced labour • -Criminal gang charged migrant agency workers for a placement, workers subjected to demands for increasing payment and severe beatings if they couldn’t pay • Similar circumstances found in 12 other forces across England and Wales

8. Meat and Poultry Processing Inquiry Oxfam 2009 Turning the Tide: How to best protect workers employed by gangmasters, five years after Morecambe Bay -findings indicative of conditions where forced labour might be occurring: construction, hospitality and care sectors.

9. Human Trafficking Inquiry • Similar problems as those raised by the ATMG 2012 “All Change” report • failure to understand what constitutes trafficking • lack of familiarity with techniques to identify victims of trafficking • lack of training

10. Human Trafficking Inquiry • Lack of co ordinated strategic prevention • Lack of independent oversight and monitoring body • Insufficient co ordinated inter agency working • Gaps in knowledge, data and intelligence

11. Human Trafficking Inquiry • Significance of problems arising from the lack of trust and understanding of time needed for victims to open up and “tell the truth” • Evidence of positive results from increase in resources and having a victim focussed approach • Recorded difficulties in sharing of information between agencies

12. Human Trafficking Inquiry • Tension between appropriate victim care and ability to gather intelligence and prosecution • Concerns expressed about reluctance to take risks in relation to prosecution • Problems arise from inconsistency of regulation • Low risk destination

13. The Future • IDMG? • National Crime Agency? • EU Directive? • National Rapporteur?