Mouthpiece: Failing the victims of trafficking

THIS week I sat and listened to the case of a young woman who was held captive and sexually abused for the profit of a criminal gang. Sadly this horrifying story did not appear in a novel or history book but at a seminar in the Scottish Parliament, discussing the current practice of people trafficking.

The event marked the launch of new research by Amnesty International which found that the UK Government and devolved bodies are failing in their obligations under the European Convention Against Trafficking, launched 200 years after the end of the Atlantic slave trade.

The convention – the first international treaty guaranteeing rights and support to the victims of people trafficking – marked a huge shift in the official approach to trafficking. No more would trafficked people be viewed as illegal migrants.

Instead they would be recognised as the victims of a horrendous crime, eligible for support.

The report found that in a nine-month period UK authorities identified 527 people who were suspected of being trafficked. Around a third of these cases were classified as sexual exploitation, with another third trafficking for forced labour. One third of the individuals found were children.

Each one of these cases is a human being who has been taken, held and abused for profit. Yet we find that people from countries outside Europe are much less likely to be recognised as having been trafficked, so denying them access to care and support.

Amnesty International and our partners in the Anti Trafficking Monitoring Group are calling for an independent anti-trafficking watchdog to oversee the system and ensure a fair hearing and decent care for trafficking victims. Only then can we deliver on the three-year old commitment made to trafficking victims, and lay to rest the 200-year-old ghost of the slave trade.

John Watson is programme director Scotland at Amnesty International