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The truth behind sex-trafficking

Carrie Pemberton outlines how the lucrative business works, and steps to stamp it out

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For sale? Poster from the International Organisation for Migration

‘Slave sales are now being held in bars and streets across Europe’

It is vital for us all to understand what is happening in trafficking for sexual exploitation in this country — especially in the wake of the brutal murders of five women in Ipswich who had been caught up in street prostitution.

We are also seeing greater interest in contemporary forms of slavery stimulated by the bicentenary of the Act to abolish the slave trade. And the Conservatives have just announced an “action paper” outlining their policies to counteract people-trafficking.

A report issued last year by the European Women’s Lobby estimated that 80 per cent of international trafficking is for sex. The police’s Operation Pentameter last year, which targeted brothels, lap-dancing clubs, and massage parlours, revealed women caught in slave-like conditions. The Home Office estimates that 4000 women are at present enslaved in the UK. About 70 per cent of women working in UK brothels are foreign nationals. It is reasonable to assume that a considerable proportion have been trafficked.

Awareness of trafficking has been enhanced by a spate of television programmes here and in the United States. Most of these, however, have focused on Eastern Europe. The research gathered by Operation Pentameter, and the work of CHASTE and other organisations, suggests that women and girls aged 15 to 38 have also been trafficked from China, Thailand, Malaysia, South America, India, and West and Central Africa. For contemporary sexual enslavement, the colour, the creed, and the race don’t matter — just the sex.

The first STEP often comes through the offer of new jobs and financial rewards in Japan, Europe, or North America. Those being groomed for the growing sex markets of Europe are told that there will be waitressing, secretarial, packing, or entertainment work.

The women have no idea of the horrendous conditions to which they will be subjected when they arrive at their destination. Having had their passports and visa papers removed, they are intimidated, beaten, raped by potential new owners, and served with the costs of their travel, location, and management, which can add up to a substantial debt bondage. One young Nigerian we worked with had a debt of more than £30,000 to pay her manager.

Everyone is familiar with sepia lithographs of Africans in chains being herded into slave markets. Slave sales are now being held in bars, basements, airport lounges, and streets across Europe. Women and young girls change hands for as little as US$500, rising to US$20,000 for an exceptionally beautiful, virginal specimen.

One senior Conservative politician wrote to CHASTE recently to lament the perceived lack of immigration controls at our borders. He asked why “victims” were not detected at the point of entry. The problem is that many of those coming into the country are not aware of the fate that awaits them.

Another question, asked in all innocence, is why the women don’t simply refuse. This is asked by those who do not know the force of a fist on their face or chest, the threat of violence against members of their family back home, or having a pistol placed in their mouth.

Many women have wept and pleaded with the clients with whom they are forced to have sex, but find that not a single one has taken the matter to the police. Crimestoppers now provides an anonymous phone line for punters, and other lines are being set up by the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC), a new multi-agency unit led by the police. These telephone numbers need to be in public lavatories, pubs, taxis, phone booths, men’s magazines, football and racecourse programmes, and even church noticeboards.

Deputy Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell, the director of UKHTC, has stated that anyone having paid sex with a woman who is then found to have been trafficked will be charged with rape. He could not have given a clearer signal.

Occasionally, taxi drivers, concerned women in nightclubs, or alert church, health, or social workers help women to escape. Until September last year, there were only 27 designated safe beds in the UK paid for by the Home Office. At the end of this month, there will be 20 more, made available by members of the CHASTE initiative and paid for by the Medaille Trust and the Salvation Army.

But, as the Conservative action paper suggests, we need to increase the funding for safe spaces for the victims, who can take months to recover enough of a sense of freedom to speak against their tormentors.

The Time for a®rest campaign is now lobbying parliamentarians via e-cards. The campaign highlights the importance of signing the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. The Convention requires each country to assist victims in their physical, psychological, and social recovery, and enables their interests to be presented in criminal proceedings.

This last aim is significant, be-cause, at the moment, as a result of the immigration violations that most of these women have committed, often inadvertently, most are summarily deported after debriefing by police or immigration officers. The Convention also places a positive obligation on countries to discourage demand. This will be receiving more attention in Not For Sale Sunday in May.

The trafficking business is now worth an estimated £12 billion globally. Alterations in the law and more resources are essential if it is to be halted. There can be no better way to mark the bicentenary of the Act than to abolish the slave trade.

The Revd Dr Carrie Pemberton is CEO of CHASTE (Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking Across Europe).

www.chaste.org.uk



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