PRESS RELEASE - CARE welcomes the publication of the draft Modern Slavery Bill today, however the Christian charity warns that it is in serious danger of overlooking the vulnerability of child victims of human trafficking and the specialist support that they require.

The charity believes that the Government should establish a system of Child Trafficking Guardians to work alongside children who have been trafficked providing consistent, independent support, accompanying them and speaking up for the child’s best interests in all circumstances.

Currently, children who have been rescued from human trafficking come into contact with a number of different professionals in the aftermath of their ordeal which can be very confusing for the child. The failure to provide child victims with consistent support leaves them vulnerable to the attempts of their traffickers to get them back. Of 942 trafficked children rescued between 2005 and 2010, a staggering 301 went missing from local authority care. Without Child Trafficking Guardians in place the expectation, shared by CARE, is that large numbers of children will continue to be re-trafficked by the criminals they had been rescued from.

Chief Executive of CARE, Nola Leach, says:

“Children who are victims of human trafficking need significantly higher levels of support than they currently experience. Providing each child victim with a Child Trafficking Guardian will greatly improve the protection and care that they receive. Crucially it should also minimise the numbers of children going missing once they have been rescued.”

“Specialist guardians will give children a stronger voice as they navigate the care, justice and immigration systems throughout their journey to recovery.”

CARE is concerned that the failure to have regard for the care of child trafficking victims seems to be reflective of the wider failure to have regard for victim care.

Nola Leach continued:

“The provision of proper criminal offences and sanctions is only part of the challenge. Any comprehensive modern slavery Bill should seek to create a legislative framework that is tough on traffickers, demonstrates proper care for the victims of trafficking and puts in place measures to address the demand for trafficking. This Bill only really addresses the first of these three issues.”

CARE calls for the creation of a statutory guarantee of help and support for adult and child victims to ensure that successive Governments continue to provide these services and that the needs of victims are placed at the heart of the Bill.

As an example of this, adult survivors are currently entitled to just 45 days of accommodation and assistance, with ongoing support or rehabilitation only provided by charities. CARE believes this should be doubled.

The charity also argues that robust statutory steps should be taken to address demand. Given the significant proportion of people trafficked to the UK to meet the demand for paid sex, one step the Bill should take with respect to demand is criminalising payment for sex. This has had success in Sweden and Norway and just last week France followed suit and made buying sex a criminal offence.

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For further information please contact James Mildred on tel: 07581 153693 or email: james.mildred@care.org.uk

Notes to Editors:

1. The draft Modern Slavery Bill can be accessed here.
2. CARE welcomes the recommendation in Frank Field’s report, also published today, that suggests that the Joint Committee, which will scrutinise the draft legislation during the next stage of the Bill’s development, should give consideration to the establishing of child guardians.
3. The number of missing child victims is drawn from the following: CEOP (2007) A Scoping Project on Child Trafficking in the UK, page 48; CEOP(2009) Strategic Threat Assessment, Child Trafficking in the UK, page 62; CEOP (2010) Strategic Threat Assessment, Child Trafficking in the UK, page 21
4. CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) is a well-established mainstream Christian charity providing resources and helping to bring Christian insight and experience to matters of public policy and practical caring initiatives. CARE is represented in the UK Parliaments and Assemblies, at the EU in Brussels and the UN in Geneva and New York. CARE is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales at 53 Romney Street, London, SW1P 3RF, Company No: 3481417, Charity No: 1066963 www.care.org.uk