hurdles to overcome in attempts to tackle the global problem. She said: “Tere are many challenges


that range from how to identify victims in the first instance and how to prosecute people, but for my job the challenge is bringing partners together. “Tere has been a situation where,


for example, labour officials only speak amongst themselves, academics speak to each other and migration officials never talk with labour officials and so on. Terefore one of the biggest challenges is getting agencies to understand the necessity of talking to each other and creating policies that are more coherent.


“I think we are moving


forward – the prosecution element was not being discussed years ago”


“Tere are some countries that have managed to move towards a multi- sector approach and they have increased prosecution rates and services for victims.” She added: “It is difficult to answer


how big the issue of human trafficking is because many people want figures and data. We don’t really have numbers, we have a lot of estimates and one of the biggest problems we face is data collection. “Tere is a host of reasons why we don’t


have statistics – we have seen over the years that authorities find it very difficult to identify victims of trafficking so if you don’t know how to do that then obviously, you don’t know how many victims you have. “Tere is an estimate that there are


several hundreds of thousands of people trafficked into the EU each year. Do I think it has increased over the years? Most probably so because of globalisation, increasing inequalities, conflicts around the world and so on.” Vassiliadou said it was important to


acknowledge that trafficking often stems from locations close to home. She added: “We tend to think that


trafficking is a migration issue and that it is just people coming from outside the EU – but it is very much an internal issue as well. “If we equate trafficking with migration, it is a very dangerous road to go down


because there is a lot trafficking going on within Europe and within member states themselves. Transnational co-operation between the police is very useful and it needs to be done. “Traffickers move and we have to


compete against that. Unless you have the police and the border guards moving with them then we will not get very far.” She added: “It is also very important that victims are not confused and thought of as people that are seeking asylum. Victims come into a number of member states and they are forced to be involved in criminal activity. “Tey can later end up being prosecuted


by countries or being treated as irregular migrants, which they are not as they have been forced to be there. “It is not a case of seeking asylum


and this European directive is about protecting these victims and trying to be able to identify them better and be able to say that once they have been identified they will be fully protected. We cannot go down the line of thinking ‘they are asylum seekers and we have to send them back’.” A UN report said that around 50 per


cent of trafficking victims are sexually exploited, while around 45 per cent are targeted for labour exploitation. Tere are a range of other factors that motivate trafficking, including illegal adoption and removal of organs. It is thought the majority of people trafficked into the UK are from Eastern Europe, northern Africa and part of Asia. Vassiliadou said the Scottish


commissioner’s report was an important step forward and she hopes it will encourage further engagement in the issue. “I am very happy to see this report,” she


said. “Te report exposes a number of areas that need to be addressed and it is quite balanced. It is positive that a number of issues have been raised in terms of how we deal with identifying victims, how to deal with prosecution, data collection and child protection. “Although the lack of prosecutions for


trafficking is brought up regularly, I think we are moving forward – the prosecution element was not being discussed years ago. “Prosecution rates throughout the EU


are extremely low because in most cases, there is still that difficulty in identifying victims. “We need to prosecute and we need


to find ways to do it and the fact it is addressed shows we are moving in the right direction.”


IN BRIEF


Report highlights rise in child abuse The number of children needing orders to protect them from abuse has risen to its highest in eight years, according to new Scottish figures. Statistics have sparked growing concerns about the number of youths being referred to the Children’s Reporter. The number of youngsters passed to the Children’s Reporter overall has fallen by almost 8 per cent, from 42,532 in 2009/10, to 39,217 last year. However, abuse is a growing problem, with 678 youngsters needing child protection orders last year – the highest since 2004/05 – and almost half of those were under the age of two.


Rape conviction rates fall Almost two-thirds of rape charges brought before Scottish courts for trial in 2008/09 did not result in a conviction, new figures indicate. The latest statistics on rape charges, published in a report by the Crown Office, show 62 per cent of charges indicted for trial did not lead to conviction while 32 per cent resulted in a conviction for rape or a similar offence. According to the figures, the remaining 6 per cent of cases have not been concluded yet. The figures represent a fall on the previous year when 36 per cent led to convictions.


Prison inquiry launched


A special commission is to examine how female offenders are dealt with in the Scottish criminal justice system, following publication of a damning report into Scotland’s only all-female prison. The inquiry, to be headed by the former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini, will look at how to reverse the steady rise in the female prison population, which has doubled in the last decade. The announcement followed a report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland which criticised Cornton Vale, the country’s only all-female prison, as “an unacceptably poor establishment”.


Clarke accused of U-turn Justice Secretary at Westminster, Ken Clarke, has insisted the decision to abandon plans to offer 50 per cent sentence discounts to offenders who submit early guilty pleas is not “another U-turn” by the Government. He faced calls for his resignation after Prime Minister David Cameron forced him to ditch all his plans for sentence discounts following an outcry from the Tory right and the tabloids. Labour leader Ed Miliband said the proposal had not “been thought through”.


27 June 2011 Holyrood 49


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