Trafficked people being treated as criminals by officials, inquiry says

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The victims of human trafficking, including women forced into the sex industry or trapped as unpaid domestic servants, are being unfairly treated as criminals and illegal immigrants, an inquiry has found.

The investigation by Lady Helena Kennedy QC has concluded that the police and immigration authorities fail to see the thousands of women, men and children trafficked into Britain as the innocent victims of organised crime whose own basic rights have been breached.

Kennedy's report to the Scottish office of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), published on Monday after an 18-month inquiry, calls on the UK and Scottish governments to introduce legislation and criminal justice policies which will tackle trafficking as a specific crime and support its victims.

She said trafficked people frequently end up being forced to work in prostitution, domestic service, fruit and vegetable picking, food processing, benefit fraud and cannabis cultivation. But the issue is chiefly treated by the authorities as an illegal immigration, sexual offences or crime enforcement matter.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/nov/27/human-trafficking-crime-victims

[christx30]

1. Why do they use

"human trafficking"? I'd rather they just get rid of the pretty glaze and call it what it is: Slavery.
Indentured servitude is pretty much the same thing. They are told that they have some "opportunity" in the US and are shoved into ships and taken across the sea with no better conditions than in the 1700's.
It's an industry built on lies and death.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. The trafifickers are no dummies. They pay the locals to protect them. Often they ARE the locals.

So, if a women tries to complain that she is being forced into prostitution, her pimp gets local law enforcement to silence her by sending her home. If a sweat shop employee tries to complain about work conditions at Dixie Cup, the Koch Brothers can count upon the feds to handle it.

Capitalism gets filthy, bloody rich off the forced labor of the poor and oppressed. And in a land where citizens have lots of rights, immigrants are the easiest to oppress.

[SoapBox]

3. How typical of the Police Militia types, to make the victim the criminal.

Something is REALLY wrong in the world today.

And I absolutely agree with the previous post...this is SLAVERY.

[provis99]

4. well, they ARE prostitutes, and in the country illegally,

so why the complaints for treating them as the criminals and illegal immigrants they are?

[Tumbulu]

5. are you making a joke?

people sold into slavery do not get to pick the work they are told to do.

It is the enslavers and the people who pay for the sex who are the criminals, not the victims.

[redqueen]

6. Wow.