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By Baroness Doocey - 7th March 2011
Child trafficking is a "horrific issue" which needs to be addressed, says Baroness Doocey.
I have raised many issues over the years as a London Assembly Member and member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. But there are no issues I feel more passionate about than child trafficking.
That's why I've made it my top priority as a new Member of the House of Lords. I have already tabled a series of written questions about child trafficking and my first oral question is about this issue.
Child trafficking into the UK seems so horrific to some people that their only response is to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Such a response, while perhaps to be expected, is simply not tolerable.
Child trafficking is real. Children are being brought into the UK as domestic slaves and the number of children involved is incredibly high. Some children find themselves put to work as childminders or domestics. Some are forced, Oliver Twist-style, into street crime. Others are used for benefit fraud and, yes, some end up being sexually exploited.
Why do parents allow their children to be treated this way? The usual reason is that parents are tricked into sending their children to the UK with promises of a good education and a better chance in life. Instead, these children end up condemned to a life of slavery.
During my time at the London Assembly and MPA, I've become increasingly aware that the current system is simply not equipped to deal with the problem.
In 2003, a dedicated team was set up at Heathrow Airport, called Paladin. This unit comprises Metropolitan Police officers and UK Border Agency staff. Its focus is on stopping child trafficking through entry points into London. Although based at Heathrow, Paladin also covers London City Airport and St Pancras International railway station.
The police officers who work within Paladin are specialist child protection officers from the Child Abuse Investigation Command Unit. During the first three months of their operation, they intercepted 1,800 unaccompanied children coming through the airport, and a third of these were deemed to be vulnerable.
Paladin has proved effective and its achievements at Heathrow are good news. The bad news is that there are no specialist child protection officers working full-time at St Pancras. They are called in only if another agency happens to identify a child it is concerned about.
Children as young as 12 years old can travel unaccompanied from the Continent on Eurostar. They need a letter from their parents or guardians to pass through border controls in France and Belgium, but there is no system in place to check the authenticity of the letters. And there are no checks or controls on board Eurostar trains or at St Pancras station to ensure the children's safety. It is therefore easy for an unaccompanied child arriving at St Pancras simply to disappear.
Given Paladin's success at Heathrow, and given how tough security controls are for air travel these days, it is no surprise that the criminals behind child trafficking are diverting their trade to other routes into the UK. As long as the Eurostar route has relatively lax controls, it is an obvious alternative for criminals to exploit. It is therefore essential to have a dedicated child protection team at St Pancras, to stop trafficked children entering this country to be used for benefit fraud and sexual exploitation.
It is time that this issue was fully investigated by the Home Office. And if new procedures must be agreed and implemented with our European partners to protect children travelling to the UK, then so be it.
In the meantime, I hope my question on Monday helps initiate real action in addressing the horrific issue of children being trafficked into the very heart of London.
A former Liberal Democrat councillor in Richmond-upon-Thames and current chair of the Greater London Assembly, Dee Dooceywas raised to the peerage in 2010.
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