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UK Home Office Recognizes "Modern Slavery"

An end to the cruelty of modern day slavery was how the UK Home Office hailed the publication of an Action Plan to tackle Human Trafficking.

New measures in the "UK Human Trafficking Action Plan" aim to protect the innocent victims of trafficking through improved support services, victim detection and increased awareness campaigns while increasing enforcement activity and knowledge of the crime.

On Friday the Home Secretary signed the ‘Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Human Trafficking’ on the same table that William Wilberforce and other abolitionists drafted the original slavery bills.

The Convention aims to provide a framework for the minimum rights and protection for all identified victims of trafficking.

Key points from the Action Plan include:
* establishing specialist teams at ports of entry;
* the introduction of a Child Trafficking Telephone Advice Line for social workers, police and immigration staff who may come into contact with potential victims: the creation of a national referral system to help with the formal identification of victims.

The plan also highlights increased enforcement activity to be driven forward by the UK Human Trafficking Centre.

Home Office Minister, Vernon Coaker, said: "Human trafficking is an appalling crime which causes terrible trauma to its victims. I have heard first hand from those who have suffered at the hands of traffickers and I am fully committed to do all I can to end this horrific crime.

Scotland’s Justice Minister, Cathy Jamieson, said: "Today, 200 years after the legal abolition of the slave trade, we are faced with a new challenge - how we tackle the appalling trafficking in human beings and prevent the misery which it causes."

Adapted from: "Human trafficking branded ‘modern slavery.’" Londra Gazette. 27 March 2007.