By Baroness Massey of Darwen - 14th October 2010
Baroness Massey of Darwen writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her debate on human trafficking.
October 18th has been designated as anti-slavery day in the UK, to raise awareness of the dangers of modern-day slavery and human trafficking.
Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery and is particularly heinous when children are trafficked.
It is estimated that around the world there are at least 12.3 million adults and children in forced labour, bonded labour and forced prostitution.
Data is unreliable, the home affairs select committee conducted an inquiry in 2009 into human trafficking in the UK. It found that NGOs and government agencies said they could not even guess at the number of people trafficked.
However a rough estimate suggests there are about 5000 victims in the UK, between 100,000 and 800,000 who are trafficked every year.
Trafficking is a profitable business, second only to the arms trade. The size of the UK market is up to £275m although the total economic and social cost is likely to be around £1bn.
The new proposed European Directive on Human Trafficking will include substantive criminal law provisions, more extraterritorial jurisdiction rules and victim assistance and support.
It will also provide protection of victims in criminal proceedings, prevention and monitoring measures.
The debate on Thursday will ask if the coalition government will sign up to this convention.
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