(For info.)
1. U.K.: Refugee is permitted to challenge dispersal
2. U.K.: African kids being held for debts (2 stories)
3. Ireland: Gov't is concerned about child trafficking
Asylum seeker wins right to challenge transfer refusal
By John Aston
Press Association (U.K.), December 20, 2001
A Palestinian asylum seeker today won permission to bring a High Court
challenge over a refusal to transfer his family from an estate where a
Kurdish refugee was stabbed to death only yards from his home.
A judge was told that Mustafa Thiab, who fled to the UK after being shot by
the Israeli armed forces in 1992, had suffered "racially-motivated
violence" on the Sighthill Estate, Glasgow, and wanted a transfer for
reasons of safety.
Mr Justice Gibbs, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled there was "an
arguable case" that the refusal to relocate the family was unreasonable and
unlawful.
The judge said the application for judicial review should go to a full
hearing before the end of March next year. The legal challenge was given
the go-ahead despite assertions by the National Asylum Support Service
(NASS), a Home Office agency, that steps had been taken to improve the
situation on Sighthill, and the estate was now "safe".
The judge had heard that Mr Thiab and his wife and four children lived only
yards from where 25-year-old Firsat Dag was killed in August this year.
The incident caused increased racial tensions in Glasgow and called into
question the Government's programme for dispersing asylum seekers.
Last week Scott Burrell, 26, was sentenced to life imprisonment for Mr
Dag's murder, and to a concurrent sentence of eight years for attempted
robbery.
Half way through the trial the Crown dropped allegations that the attack
was racially aggravated because of lack of evidence.
Today Nicholas Blake QC, appearing for Mr Thiab, described how the life of
the "psychologically-vulnerable" and severely depressed man had been marred
by several incidents on the estate since moving there in May 2000.
The QC told Mr Justice Gibbs: "It is clear Mr Thiab has been the victim of
racially-motivated violence.
"Between August 2000 and March 2001 there were at least four occasions
involving stone throwing, bottle throwing and glass smashing around him."
Other asylum seekers on the estate had been the subject of severe assaults,
apparently connected with their status as immigrants or asylum seekers.
Assertions by NASS that the depression from which Mr Thiab suffered had
nothing to do with his housing conditions contradicted previous assessments
by psychologists.
But Robin Tam, appearing for NASS, submitted that Mr Thiab had no arguable
case for judicial review.
He said the Government introduced its dispersal scheme because asylum
seekers "tended to congregate in certain areas, causing social and public
order problems and putting pressure on housing stock".
The scheme provided very clearly that accommodation was to be offered on a
"no choice" basis.
It was not right that asylum seekers had no right to leave the places to
which they were sent - but if they did go elsewhere they would have to
arrange their own accommodation, although they would receive support.
Although it was accepted Mr Thiab's mental health was not good, medical
advice received was that treatment was available in Glasgow, and "it was
not at a severe level".
There was some dispute over the allegations of racial incidents made by Mr
Thiab, but in any event the latest reports from the police were that
improvements had been made and Sighthill "is safe", said Mr Tam.
Giving permission for the legal challenge to go ahead, the judge said it
was "arguable" that the original decision letters sent to Mr Thiab last
August were defective, in that they had failed to take into account "the
undoubted occasions upon which the applicant and his family had reported to
the police incidents which were capable of amounting to racial abuse".
He was "only narrowly persuaded" because a witness statement submitted by
NASS at the eleventh hour reported that the situation on the Sighthill
estate had improved.
However the statement suggested that the police had never recommended
relocating Mr Thiab - "but I recollect there is a letter from a police
officer in Glasgow making a recommendation that he be relocated in the city".
Further, although there was a reference in the statement "in fairly general
terms" of reports of harassment being properly investigated, there was
"nothing convincing" which indicated "each and every one of the complaints"
made by Mr Thiab had been considered.
African children 'being held for debts'
British Broadcasting Corporation, December 19, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1718000/1718885.stm
Hundreds of West African children are being held in the UK as part of
orchestrated benefit scams, the BBC has learned.
An investigation by Radio 4's Today programme found the children were being
held in lieu of debts incurred by their parents.
It found many of the children were severely abused and treated as slaves.
But when the authorities were alerted to the problem, there was little they
could do about it.
The Today team found hundreds of children from West African countries such
as Ivory Coast and Nigeria were being handed over to UK gangs.
Many of the children were handed over after their parents fail to pay the
gangs for organising their own entry into Europe.
'Squalid' conditions
The children were then held, often in shocking conditions, by the
racketeers who could claim benefits of up to £40 a week per child.
The investigators cited one case in which 12 children were living in
"cramped, squalid" conditions with one woman - giving an income of up to
£480 per week.
One well-organised network involved the UK and Ireland, with some children
being passed around adults - appearing first in one country, and later in
another.
One official in the Irish Republic said: "This debt repayment system is
very much in operation. And it seems to be very well orchestrated.
"They (the people who hand over their children) are sucked into it, because
they're being forced to by those who are operating it. They've no choice.
"But from the point of view of actually trying to identify whether these
children are being used, it's virtually impossible... they disappear and
they go back to the UK."
A UK social worker said child trafficking was common in Britain - he had
come across it in every London borough he had worked in over 15 years.
He said social workers did not have the jurisdiction to investigate such
rings and relied on the police, immigration authorities and Department of
Social Security (DSS).
But the Today team found these agencies often found themselves restricted.
The DSS does not have a remit to investigate welfare cases. It will only
probe cases of benefit fraud - for instance when more than one person is
found to be claiming for a particular child.
Individual police forces do not have the resources to investigate
trafficking rings which can stretch across forces and even countries.
Campaigners are calling for a special police unit, similar to the
Metropolitan Police's vice squad, to be set up to target human trafficking.
Mike Kay from Anti-Slavery International says there is also an urgent need
for a change in the law.
He said: "We need to have legislation which deals with trafficking for both
sexual and labour exploitation.
"Until you've got the legislation in place, you can't make it a priority
for police forces."
New police squad
The National Crime Squad (NCS) is planning to launch a specific Immigration
Crime Team next month, which will target gangs involved in human trafficking.
NCS spokeswoman Jackie Bennett told BBC News Online: "We will be targeting
the criminal, not the crime.
"Some of these gangs are making huge sums of money trafficking people. The
age of the immigrants is irrelevant."
She said these gangs often used routes which were already well trodden by
drug and cigarette smugglers.
African children being sold into slavery
By Rachel Donneley
The Irish Times, December 20, 2001
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2001/1220/hom11.htm
The traffic in children from west Africa to the UK is a nightmare world
from which the innocents have little chance of escaping, writes Rachel Donnelly
It is described as the new slave trade and the tragedy of human trafficking
sees thousands of men, women and children disappear into an underground
network of fear and intimidation they have little hope of escaping.
In some cases, child trafficking has its roots in the legitimate cultural
tradition of west Africa whereby children of poor families are sent to
richer relatives to gain a better education, often in return for carrying
out domestic chores in the new household.
But the system has been "corrupted," according to Mr David Ould, deputy
director of Anti-Slavery International, by the traffickers who act as
"contractors" promising to find children work or a better life with
families in other countries.
The children are often sent into prostitution or slavery to pay off the
trafficking fee.
"The families take big risks and this goes together with the absolute
poverty in some of these villages," says Mr Ould, whose organisation has
been monitoring child slavery in the Ivory Coast. "They are told by
contractors, 'I can find the child work in Côte d'Ivoire, or in the UK, and
they could send money back home' and the children are then sent to Britain."
One of the ways in which the children arrive in Britain is as unaccompanied
minors through airports. If they claim refugee status or are found to be
illegal, they are transferred into the care of social services.
The social-services' centres are not detention centres, so the children
have a degree of freedom to come and go. Information given to Anti-Slavery
International suggests many children coming from west Africa have
disappeared from the centres and in one case it is believed that a
trafficker posed as a solicitor to remove a child from a social-services'
centre.
Investigations into the disappearance of 66 children from the care of
social services in West Sussex since 1995 have found that some of the
children were carrying the telephone numbers of traffickers who they had
been told to contact in Britain. Anti-Slavery International says that in
some cases young girls were told during "initiation" programmes in Nigeria
that traffickers were "sacred figures" who must not be crossed.
The girls were told they would be "cursed" if they did not contact
trafficking gangs in Britain or other children in social-services' centres
acting as go-betweens for the gangs. Some of the children were then removed
from Britain by the traffickers and sent to Italy where they were put into
prostitution to pay back the traffickers' fee for getting them into Europe.
Other children entering Britain from the Ivory Coast arrive with an adult
who has documents that say he or she is the parent. Anti-Slavery
International says there are suggestions that officials in the west African
country have played a role in providing the false documents, which makes
monitoring the children once they are in Britain virtually impossible.
But whereas Ireland passed a human trafficking law last year, Britain does
not have identical anti-trafficking legislation. "We believe that in the
short-term there is a need for legislation that will prosecute
traffickers," says Mr Ould. "There is a review of all sexual offences
underway. There is some discussion about the trafficking of women and
within that it has been identified that a law on trafficking is needed, but
it needs to be widened beyond sexual offences and prostitution."
The organisation is also calling on the British government to follow
through on its commitment to stop human trafficking to give social services
the power to investigate cases and establish a non-governmental
organisation to provide protection for trafficked children.
Fears of child trafficking in State growing
By Rachel Donnelly and Marie O'Halloran
The Irish Times, December 20, 2001
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2001/1220/hom1.htm
Health board authorities have reported some 10 cases to gardaí that could
be linked to child trafficking in the State. The Garda National Immigration
Bureau is investigating a "number of situations" where officials did not
believe that the relatives were "the true guardians" of the children.
Bureau officials are seeking DNA corroboration in some cases as a "massive"
increase is reported in the number of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum
in the State.
The news emerged as an investigation by BBC Radio 4's Today programme
yesterday found that hundreds of children from West African countries such
as the Ivory Coast and Nigeria were being held in Britain by human
trafficking gangs in lieu of debts incurred by their parents to send them
to Europe.
In many cases, the children were living in squalid conditions working as
domestic servants while people acting for the traffickers claimed up to £40
sterling per week for each child in child benefit. One alleged case
involved 12 children.
The investigation discovered that a boy originally being held by
traffickers in Britain was missing. The BBC team later identified the boy
at the Mosney asylum centre near Drogheda, Co Louth, with a woman claiming
to be from Nigeria. It is understood the woman was in fact from Sierra Leone.
However, neither the Immigration Bureau, local gardaí nor Mosney
authorities were aware of the case.
The Northern Area Health Board, which has responsibility for Mosney, was
also unaware of it. It has reported 43 suspected asylum fraud cases to the
gardaí but none of those relates to children or child trafficking,
according to a spokeswoman.
The East Coast Area Health Board has, however, reported up to 10 cases in
the past two years to gardaí where social workers had suspicions, when
relatives subsequently appeared to claim unaccompanied children arriving in
the State. Up to 1,500 unaccompanied minors have arrived in the State in
the past two years.
A file has been sent to the DPP about a case in March when a man was
arrested by gardaí on suspicion of trafficking, when he was found with with
64 genuine birth certificates from Nigeria, which were not filled in.
However, there are no asylum cases where either child sexual exploitation
or child labour is alleged.
The BBC investigation was prompted by the case of eight-year-old Victoria
Climbie, originally from Ivory Coast, who was beaten, starved and tortured
to death by her great-aunt, Marie Therese Kouao, and Kouao's boyfriend,
Carl Manning, who were convicted of murder.
It is customary in the Ivory Coast for families to send their children to
Europe with better off relatives to gain a better education and Victoria
travelled to Britain with her family's blessing.
The extent of child trafficking in Britain is unknown but it is estimated
that there are up to one million illegal immigrants in Britain and there is
anecdotal evidence from immigrant groups that many are sold into
prostitution or become the victims of extortion to pay back the
traffickers' fee.
The National Crime Squad in Britain said it was a "reasonable conclusion"
that the trade in child trafficking was carried out in such a covert way
that it was not being fully detected by the authorities.
The National Crime Squad is due to launch an Immigration Crime Team in
January, which will target child slavery and trafficking as part of its
investigations into organised crime.
A spokesman for the squad said there was "anecdotal" evidence of child
trafficking and child slavery which suggested the trade was "sporadic."
Thanks
Frank Corrigan
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