Child Slavery

David Simpson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Hood. It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship today. I rise to speak on this subject in the reassuring knowledge that on the general thrust of this debate, it is more than likely for the most part that party political differences will be set to one side. I say that not out of any sense of presumption but from my own experiences as a Member of this House and from the united opposition to the obscenity that is child slavery. We may differ in our responses to particular examples, but right hon. and hon. Members from all parts of the House have a shared abhorrence of the ongoing present-day shame and nightmare of child slavery.

Recently, Save the Children UK reaffirmed the figures of the International Labour Organisation, which revealed that across the globe, something like 218 million children between the ages of five and 17 are working as child labourers or are in child slavery. 126 million of those children are involved in hazardous work. About 8.4 million are trapped in the very worst forms of illegal, degrading and dangerous work. That equates to the horrifying statistic that in the least developed countries, 30% of children are engaged in child labour in some shape or form. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are some 49 million children involved in this activity.

It is further estimated that some 1.2 million children, both boys and girls, are trafficked every year and exploited as workers in agriculture, mining, factories, armed conflict and the sex industry. Those children are modern-day slaves, and the numbers are greater than when the old historical slave trade was at its height. Their sufferings are no less wrong, and the injustice inflicted upon them is no less real than those that were endured by slaves in a bygone era.

I want to consider three main issues: forced marriage, which is a form of slavery for children as young as 10 and 12; the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation; and forced labour and the economic exploitation of children. When we consider the issue of forced marriages, it is worth remarking that the previous Government tightened up the situation, which is to be welcomed. However, the then shadow Minister, Baroness Warsi, had this to say in relation to the new laws:

“The onus to go for a civil protection order is actually on the victim of the forced marriage or somebody close to them. I know from speaking to victims of forced marriages that, when they’re in those circumstances, the last thing on their mind or the last thing that they’re able to do, is go to court and seek an order.”

Hon. Members will no doubt be familiar with the fact that between April 2009 and March 2010, the British high commission’s assistance unit in Islamabad dealt with 121 cases of forced marriages, and there were 124 cases previous to that. In August 2008, 22 new cases were taken on by the unit—equivalent to one every working day of that month. In reference to those figures, Baroness Warsi said:

“Forced marriage ruins lives. It can lead to rape, abuse, and unwanted pregnancies. This is a serious problem, and these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Forced marriages have no place in Britain today. The Government’s current approach is clearly failing vulnerable people who need our help. It is now time for the Government to consider making forced marriage a criminal offence.”

I am sure that many hon. Members will also be aware of the story of 14-year-old Jasvinder Sanghera who was shown a photograph of a random man and told that she was going to marry him. She ran away from home. When she rang to say that she was safe, she was given an ultimatum: either marry the man in the photograph or, because she had “shamed” the family, she would be dead in their eyes.

Later, she heard that one of her sisters was brought to such depths of pain and despair by her own forced marriage that she set fire to herself and died in hospital from 80% burns. I have no doubt that hon. Members will know of the letter that the then leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister sent Jasvinder in which he said:

“As a country, I believe that we are half-asleep to these issues.”

I am sure that many hon. Members will share my concern about the recent report in The Times on 2 February that stated that of the 254 protection orders issued, only five families have been brought back to court for breaching the order and there have been no convictions.

In the same report, Nazir Afzal of the Crown Prosecution Service said:

“You are easily looking at 10,000 forced marriages or threats a year. I keep asking myself how many unmarked graves are there where people are not even reporting that their child is missing.”

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I commend my hon. Friend on the timeliness and importance of his debate. He is touching on the sheer volume of the problem and the lack of prosecutions. Does he agree with me that while we all share the outrage and anger at the prevalence of this activity, what we need to see is more activity in trying to bring those responsible, particularly those engaged in trafficking, before the courts to be convicted?

[David Simpson]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He has hit the nail right on the head; we need convictions. People involved in this—we may not be able to do this within the law—should be locked up and the key thrown away. I am sure that all Members will agree that forced marriages and slavery are horrific crimes.

The Times also quoted a police officer who called for this crime to be made an aggravated offence, which would hand the courts power to pass enhanced sentences. I have already mentioned the comments made by Baroness Warsi in relation to the whole matter of forced marriage and the new laws introduced by the previous Labour Government. At that time, she also made a commitment that the Conservative party would make forced marriage illegal. Given the current situation, I would suggest that the time has come to change forced marriage from a civil offence to a criminal offence.

When he was in opposition, the Prime Minister promised that that was a step that he would take. Baroness Warsi also made that commitment on behalf of what is now the senior partner in the coalition Government. I encourage the coalition Government to go that extra mile now and stop this form of child slavery. The trafficking of children for sexual exploitation is shameful. It is estimated that about 100,000 to 500,000 people are trafficked into Europe on an annual basis.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I also remind him that I have to attend a Committee this afternoon, so if I slip away shortly it is not because I am not interested in this debate.

When my hon. Friend looks around the devolved jurisdictions that now exist in the United Kingdom, does he think that they are doing anything on top of what our national Government are doing to address the slave trade? The slave trade is not a 21st century phenomenon. It has existed for many centuries, and sometimes expertise and other help is needed to address it.

[David Simpson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and he is right. During the debate that we had some time ago in the House on slavery, the issue of the devolved jurisdictions was raised. I think that slavery has been discussed in the regional Parliaments and I know that the Northern Ireland Assembly unanimously agreed that something should be done about people trafficking. However, although we say that something should be done about it, we need to see tangible evidence that something is being done. Words are fine—they are nice on paper—but we need to see evidence that something is being done for these children.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I add my commendations on the fact that my hon. Friend has brought this important subject to Westminster Hall. As for what can be done about trafficking, is it not the case that something could be done in Europe through the European directive on trafficking? Does he agree that there are concerns about why the United Kingdom has not gone further in relation to that particular issue and sits outside that directive?

[David Simpson]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. He is 100% right. Britain should play a stronger role on this issue, and perhaps later in my speech I will address that point. It is important that Britain take the lead on this issue, because slavery is such an horrific crime.

The US Department of State has estimated that up to 800,000 people are trafficked across borders worldwide. Most of them are women and children who are trafficked for sexual purposes. That figure does not include people trafficked within individual countries.

Concerns about the trafficking of children and young people for sexual purposes in the United Kingdom have been raised for some time. I commend the work of ECPAT, which is a very good organisation. Its full name is “End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes”. In its October 2010 report, “Child trafficking in the UK: a snapshot”, it made 10 recommendations. They range from establishing a Government rapporteur on trafficking to the issue of departmental responsibility for safeguarding the child victims of trafficking. They also include very practical recommendations such as the appointment of

“a designated lead manager on child trafficking…in every local authority”,

the provision of

“safe accommodation for all child victims of trafficking”,

and the creation of

“a system of guardianship for child victims of trafficking. Such a system would mean that every child victim of trafficking would have someone with parental responsibility”.

I am sure that the Minister is well aware of those recommendations and I ask him to give us an update on what the Government are doing with regard to them.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. He has already given statistics about the exploitation of children, including statistics about forced marriage and sexual exploitation. I am sure that he will agree that, although the statistics themselves are horrifying, it must be remembered that behind each of them there is a horrifying experience. It has been reported that children as young as five are being bought and sold on the streets within the United Kingdom for £16,000.

[David Simpson]

That is correct.

[Dr McCrea]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see the current situation change radically and that that can happen only if the authorities pursue criminal convictions?

[David Simpson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I agree 100% with him. We need to have convictions. There must be a willingness from the Government’s point of view to do something about this issue. If there is a will within the Government to do something about it, we will see results and then convictions will come afterwards. That is why it is important that we listen when the Minister responds to the debate. Hopefully, some glimmer of light and hope will emerge.

Investigations by children’s charities have identified sexual trafficking not only through the United Kingdom to other destinations but to the United Kingdom itself, with children and young people ending up as sex workers in brothels in various parts of the country. That seems to be a very strong statement when we are talking about the United Kingdom—this United Kingdom, the modern United Kingdom, which emphasises its work skills, its technology and everything that goes with that. We are out there to market ourselves to the wider world and we have a situation today where children as young as five or six are being sold on the streets of England for £16,000. That is the evidence from the research papers that I have been given—I did not make it up. It is abhorrent that that should happen in any country.

UNICEF is a reputable organisation. It has said that about 250 children were known to be trafficked into the United Kingdom within a five-year period, but it added that the real figure is likely to be far higher. These children are brought into the United Kingdom as slaves for the sex industry. In 2009, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre published a report, “Strategic Threat Assessment Child Trafficking in the UK 2010”. That report identified 325 children in the United Kingdom as known or suspected victims of child trafficking in the year from March 2007 to February 2008. Trafficked children in the United Kingdom have been identified as coming from a widening range of sources.

In 2009, the then Government set up a national referral mechanism for the identification of children coming into the United Kingdom through the trafficking process. Between 1 April 2009 and 30 June 2009, 40 children were referred through that system, including two children under the age of 10. That is horrific.

Some children who have been trafficked may have been physically abducted, but many children are trafficked with the knowledge of family members, who believe that their children are being offered the chance of a better life within the United Kingdom or elsewhere and do not know that they may be destined for sexual exploitation. The vast majority of those trafficked for sexual purposes are girls, but trafficking of boys is not unusual.

UNICEF has also estimated that that figure of 40 children —those who were identified through the national referral mechanism—is likely to be higher. UNICEF has recently estimated that at any one time there are about 5,000 child sex workers—not five, 50 or 500—in this so-called modern United Kingdom. Some 75% of them are females, and the remainder are young boys.

The internal situation in other parts of the globe is worse, and even more distressing. It has been estimated that 30% of sex workers in India are children— between 270,000 and 400,000 child prostitutes. In Brazil, up to 500,000 boys and girls are commercially sexually exploited, and on the borders between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, 3,500 children are confined in brothels and clubs as slaves. We are talking about children who have not reached sexual maturity, and have no idea or understanding of what is happening to them. That is absolutely disgusting. Police in South Africa estimate that 28,000 children are coerced into the industry every year, and that in Cape Town alone some 25% of workers in the sex industry are very young children. In south and east Asia, one third of sex workers are children. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that those figures are shameful and beggar belief. Yet they are more than statistics: every figure represents the misery and loss that is routinely inflicted on a young life daily. Young lives are destroyed, and the very notion of civilisation or society debased.

[Dr McCrea]

On the sexual exploitation of children, does my hon. Friend agree that many of these children have been abducted from their families? No one can understand the anguish and pain that that causes a family. I say that as a parent who, many years ago, nearly lost one of his children, who was three or four at the time, in a hotel on vacation. My child was being taken away from us by a lady, and could have ended up in the industry. No one can understand the horror and pain that that can cause a family.

[David Simpson]

I absolutely agree, and I have mentioned the abhorrence, pain and anguish. I am sure that all hon. Members will have seen the recent news about a woman from New York who was abducted when she was very young and found out about it when she was an adult. There was a reunion, but it was miraculous that that happened, because so many times it does not, and people are left wondering how their children have turned out. It would be very difficult to live with the fact that a family member had been taken and used in such a way.

When it comes to the economic exploitation of children, including child labour, very often the United Kingdom is further downstream from the event, but the situation is no less real and no less dreadful for those caught up in the middle. Commodities—finished products that we buy—can have been produced, in part, by the efforts of forced child labour or slavery. In more than 50 African, Asian and South American countries, 1 million children are put into mines and quarries. That is a fact. About 40,000 children work in mining in the Congo. In west Africa it has been estimated that 200,000 children work in small-scale gold and mineral mines and quarries, and almost 18,000 children work in gold, silver and copper mines in the Philippines. Mining shifts worked by children can last up to 24 hours. Children work unprotected in mineral extraction, crushing ore using toxins such as mercury, at the risk of contamination. Children break and sort out rocks, water supplies are often contaminated, and there is the risk of underground explosions.

On top of those figures, we can add the number of children exploited as a result of bonded labour, in which a child is forced into slavery to pay off their family’s debt. It has been estimated that in India alone some 15 million children, most of them from low-caste families that have got into difficulties, could be working to pay off someone else’s debt. Many children across the globe, including in the United Kingdom, are beaten frequently, and passed from one owner to another as little more than a possession, or a dog. Save the Children has estimated that in Nepal there are approximately 200,000 bonded labourers, many of them children. In one province of Pakistan alone, it is estimated that there are almost 7 million bonded labourers, including children, and that around 250,000 children work in Pakistani brick kilns, and live there. Almost 70% of all child labour is in agriculture, with more than 130 million children involved in agricultural work each day.

Last year, the United States Department of Labour drew up a list of products produced by child or forced labour—slavery. The list goes from cocoa and cotton to rubber and coal; from gold and diamonds to emeralds and silver; from carpets and clothing to leather and silk; from garlic and grapes to bananas and rice; from salt and sugar to tobacco and tea; and from footballs and fireworks to fashion and furniture. All those products are made around the globe through the exploitation of children and the use of child slavery.

When it comes to both the sexual exploitation of children internationally and the kind of child labour that I have just mentioned, there are real issues for the United Kingdom Government. I am sure that all hon. Members will be able to identify numerous areas in which these issues cut across a number of Departments, but I draw specific attention to the Department for International Development. I emphasise that we are grateful for the assistance given by the UK Government to other countries, and that we are even more grateful to the many millions of people across the United Kingdom who donate money to special causes and needs, but surely pressure needs to be applied and greater emphasis placed on using our influence to end these practices. I think that all hon. Members will agree that the facts of life for millions of children across the globe, right now as we participate in this debate, are shocking and shameful.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, I am certain that whatever minor differences hon. Members might have about individual incidents and the particular responses required, we all share a conviction that child slavery is wrong, unjust and unacceptable in this modern world. I have no doubt that that is the case. That fact draws out before each of us a question that might at first glance seem unusual, even unnecessary. Whatever our political background and personal experiences, why do we share an opposition to child slavery and a conviction that this evil should end? It makes no sense in evolutionary terms. Are we not told that evolution is about survival of the fittest and competition within species? So what if the poor, the weak and the helpless are exploited by the strong and the ruthless? But buried in the depths of every man and woman is a conviction that there is something better.

Every springtime—we are coming into spring now—nature stretches out and reaches up to bring forth new life and vigour, leaving behind the deadness of winter. Every year it is doomed to fall back in winter, but every spring it stirs and rises once more. Likewise, every human being stretches out and reaches up for something better and higher. It is inborn and embedded within us to be like that. What do we stretch out towards and reach up to lay hold of? In my opinion, it is the God who reaches down to us and who himself came down to us. It is the original created image in us—yes, it is tainted, marred and clouded, but it is still that part of man, made originally for God and in the likeness of God—that stretches out and reaches up for something better and higher. That is what tells every man that the wicked enslavement of children is wrong. Just as one came down to earth to open the soul’s prison, break its fetters, snap its chains and set it free, so we feel the urge and impulse to set at liberty children who are enslaved.

I do not intend to offend any right hon. or hon. Member by saying that I do not believe that there are many Wilberforces around today. However, I believe that in the breast of every hon. Member from every political party already beats something to which Wilberforce gave voice. Wilberforce said on one occasion:

“If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.”

It is my wish by this debate to make such fanatics of us all.