The UK must help trafficking victims

This afternoon the European Parliament voted to adopt the recently amended EU Directive on Human Trafficking.

The current text is a result of agreement between the three EU decision making institutions - the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament - and contains good provisions for victim care and compensation, training of officials, assistance to child victims and seizing trafficker's profits.

Once voted for by Parliament, the Directive will swiftly be approved by the Council and subsequently come into force in the first part of next year.

All 27 member states had opted-in, except two – Denmark and the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year the British Government’s decision not to opt-in to the EU Directive on human trafficking caused considerable concern due to the number of aspects upon which the UK was not compliant. The Government stated that it was open to opting in when the Directive eventually becomes law.

Due to the recent amendments, the UK was still not compliant with the Directive.

The proposed EU Directive on Trafficking in Human Beings is the first international trafficking agreement to include clauses which specifically relate to the protection of children.

Articles 12 -14 specify that child victims of trafficking should be provided with adequate assistance and support over both the short and long term for their physical and psychological recovery. Article 14 requires an unaccompanied minor to be represented by a legal guardian, but this is not currently part of the UK court procedure.

At present there are many cases where a trafficked child’s social worker does not attend meetings relating to legal proceedings. This can result in the child having to deal with legal decisions alone with no one to adequately advise or represent him or her. This is unacceptable. Given the complexities of the criminal justice system, children who have been trafficked should be given additional support through a separate representative.

In law, the UK is compliant with the newly amended Article 7 which deals with the non prosecution of trafficking victims. However, in practice there are still cases where trafficking victims – including children – are prosecuted for crimes committed under duress. Appointing a representative for each child would greatly reduce instances of this taking place.

Until now, while the UK has had the power to prosecute in cases where trafficking occurs into, within or out of the UK, it has had no power to prosecute in cases involving British citizens where the trafficking occurs outside of the UK. Article 9 of the Directive will give the UK the option of prosecuting in such cases when the offender is a habitual resident or when the victim is a UK national. The UK will also be given jurisdiction to prosecute in all cases when the offence takes place outside of the UK and the offender is a national.

The Directive would increase the help to victims of trafficking so we are asking the Prime Minister to “look again” at this decision to opt-out. It is very clear that UK legislation does not rise to all the challenges set out in the Directive and if we don’t embrace it we will be failing some of the most vulnerable people in our society.



Rachel Davies is Prostitution and Trafficking Policy Officer at Care


Correction: The subtitle of the article mistakenly reported that the UK Government had voted to adopt the EU Directive. The Directive was adopted by the European Parliament and the UK Government will have another opportunity to opt-in at a later stage. CARE is asking the Prime Minister to "look again" at its decision to opt-out out. Christian Today apologises for any confusion caused.