Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Human trafficking

Last Thursday I spoke in a debate on human tafficking, the second we have had in the Lords this session. There e=were so many speakers we were confined to four minutes each, and today again the huge public concern over this vile trade was clear from two packed meetings in the Palace of Westminster - one by the UK Human Trafficking Centre to launch their Blue Blindfold campaogn to raise public awareness of the problem, the other to hear from Lin Homer the head of the Borders and Immigration Agency on what they are doing to combat trafficking. She was vague about what exactly has been done and what remains to be done of the Action Plan the Government produced last autumn in preparation for ratifying the Council of Europe Convention. She couldn't answer my question as to why there are apparently still 3,000 unaccompanied asylum seeking children expected to arrive in the UK this yeat, when all children arriving in the UK are now accompanied by an approved adult. There was some talk about how to identify a child who turns up without a passport and says he doesn't know what flight he was on, but there must be an unmatched adult who arrives at the same terminal.

No comments: