PRESS RELEASE - GRETA Report makes Private Members’ Bills timely

CARE strongly commends the recommendations contained in the first Council of Europe report on the UK’s compliance with the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, published today.

The report by GRETA, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, has revealed the UK is failing trafficking victims in some significant ways. Genevieve Galvin, CARE’s Human Trafficking and Exploitation Officer, said:

“While CARE celebrates the areas where improvements have been made, GRETA’s findings show how much more work there is still to do in the UK to tackle trafficking. Victims need to be supported and treated fairly and the criminals exploiting them brought to justice.

“GRETA outlines a number of ways the UK can improve its approach and many of these measures are contained within the two pioneering Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bills currently making their passage through the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly. We urge the British Government and Northern Ireland Executive to support these Bills and by doing so continue the UK’s history of championing the abolition of slavery.”

Dr Daniel Boucher, Director of Parliamentary Affairs, said:

“CARE particularly supports the call for legal guardians and safe accommodation for child victims. CARE has been consistently calling attention to the shameful and deeply disturbing fact that between 2007 and 2010, of the 942 trafficked children rescued, 301 were subsequently lost from local authority care.”

All victims need the provision of legal aid, consistent access to translation services, and assistance with compensation claims. There is also significant need for improvement in provisions of training for frontline staff involved in identification of victims and for a robust approach to enabling successful prosecutions for traffickers through a joined up multi-agency approach.

The Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings is a cross-border attempt to prevent and combat trafficking, with the objective of giving victims better protection and leading to more prosecutions for the criminals who traffick in human beings. GRETA (the Council of Europe treaty monitoring body) has been systematically publishing reports evaluating the measures taken by those countries signatory to the Convention and making recommendations to them concerning ways to step up their action if they are not complying with the measures contained in the Convention.

CARE encourages the British authorities to act on the recommendations contained in the GRETA report and to make the most of this opportunity to implement best practice and become a leader on fighting human trafficking in Europe.