VIEW, Issue two, 2012
Page 7
Fightback: Amnesty NI would welcome local and regional campaigns to tackle the scandal of human trafficking
Raising awareness on the issue of human trafficking
trafficking constitute only a fraction of the assumed total.
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Between April 1, 2009 and March 31last year, 1,481 presumed trafficked people were referred to the UK’s formal identification process, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), of which 497 were for- mally recognised as trafficked. Just over two-thirds of referrals were female. Children made up 390 (26%) of all referrals and 141 of those recognised as trafficked.
Adults and children are known to be trafficked into and within the UK for sexual exploitation, for various forms of labour exploitation and for crimi- nal activity including cannabis cultivation, other ille- gal drug production, fraud and theft. The UK, while traditionally and predominantly thought of as a destination country for trafficking, recent evidence suggests it should also be cate- gorised as a source and transit country. Fifty-two referrals of UK nationals were made to the NRM between April 2009 and March 2011, indicating the existence of internal trafficking. Certain regions of the UK, such as Northern Ireland, some parts of Wales and towns or cities with smaller, regional airports are believed to be used as much for tran- sit as destinations in themselves. Amnesty NI’s Grainne Teggart said: ‘’The root causes of trafficking can be best understood as nu- merous violations of human rights (freedom from slavery, freedom of movement, freedom from dis- crimination, rights to employment and equal pay etc.).
An important point for us to recognise is that means of recruitment, transport routes, forms of exploitation and the sectors in which trafficked
hile the scale of trafficking in NI, and in- deed the UK, is still being ‘debated’, what is generally agreed is that known cases of
As the scale of human trafficking grows bigger, VIEW asked Amnesty NI about what is needed to tackle the problem in Northern Ireland
people are exploited continue to develop and change as the more established forms attract at- tention from both government and civil society.’’ This attention has contributed to several aware- ness-raising campaigns, including The Blue Blindfold campaign developed by the UKHTC in 2007. This campaign has been rolled out in Northern Ireland, England and Wales and is aimed at the general pub- lic. It calls for people to “open their eyes” to traf- ficking and refers them to campaigns such as Crimestoppers. Ms Teggart said: “With this campaign, my feeling is that most of those working in this area were aware of the campaign, but I would question the clarity of the message and the impact it had in rais- ing awareness amongst the general public and if, more importantly, it prompted action.’’
‘Trafficking and exploitation happens within communities’
She added: “There would be great benefit to hav- ing local and regional campaigns to highlight the NI context on the issue and the fact that trafficking and exploitation happens within local communities and to encourage people to think about the issue in a more immediate way, and importantly, encour- age them to act. “We also need to consider the issue of co-ordi- nation and where the various statutory and non- statutory agencies fit in addressing any gaps in the system here’’.
sembly include appointing a regional rapporteur on trafficking and establishing an information sharing protocol across devolved and non-devolved gov- ernment departments in order to collect and pub- lish all relevant data on the extent of human trafficking in Northern Ireland. Ms Teggart said: “We would welcome such data which would allow for enhanced awareness, im- proved planning and effective service provision.’’ The new All Party Group on Human Trafficking (APGHT) met for the first time on February 14. Amnesty International is providing the secretariat to this.
Commenting on the potential this group has to contribute to tackling trafficking, Ms Teggart said: ‘’With a focused work programme, the APGHT could serve to promote effective action against trafficking for sexual and labour exploitation in Northern Ireland. “In addition, shared learning with the other de-
Recommendations from Amnesty NI for the As-
volved administrations will help us understand the nature and extent of this problem and focus our thinking on where we can work jointly on this.’’
Amnesty: Wrong Kind of Victim? report:
http://bit.ly/AuX26K
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