11 A child is defined as a person under 18.
his article analyses policy responses to child trafficking
in France and Britain in the early 2000s. Although the issue of child trafficking has been a growing public concern worldwide and within the European Union, the phenomenon remains extremely difficult to quantify, due to the lack of an internationalised agreed definition and related problems of data collection (Terre des Hommes 2004, Kelly 2005).
Introduction Ministries of Interior dominate the policy-making process. They are more inclined to portray human trafficking as a border control/law enforcement issue rather than as a problem of human rights violation. As NGOs specialised in child trafficking represent a marginalised constituency, they tend to lack political clout at the national level. This explains why such organisations have attempted to promote their human rights agenda through supranational organisations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and, to a lesser extent, the European Union, notably the European Commission and the European Parliament (Darley, 2004: 69, Raymond, 2002).
The main hypothesis of the article is that the concept of human trafficking has been transformed and recycled by state actors in order to promote a border control and anti-immigration agenda. The article is divided into three sections. The first section retraces the emergence of the concept of human trafficking in the international arena in the mid-1990s.
NGOs and supranational organisations such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe used this notion to raise the emotional profile of the issue and to ‘name and shame’ national governments with poor human rights records.
The second section examines French and British responses to human trafficking in the early 2000s. The concept enables to create a new threat, that is, ‘bogus’ minors, victims manipulated by criminal networks, or, quite simply, undeserving minors. Much to the dismay of many NGOs, it is precisely because of the emotional appeal of this notion that state actors have been able to use the notion as a rhetorical tool to promote their own order and
T
border control agenda. To conclude, the last section summarises the significance of these very provisional findings.
The emergence of child trafficking as a distinctive policy issue The rediscovery of human trafficking as a policy issue occurred in the mid-to late 1990s owing to the reported increase in prostitution involving mainly women and girls from Eastern Europe and West Africa. At the international level, human rights and children rights organisations such as the umbrella organisation End Child Prostitution, Chid Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT UK) together with international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), took the lead in raising public awareness of the issue. In 1996 several nation states including African, South Asian as well as Eastern and Western European nations established an ambitious programme based on the recommendations of the First World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC). This Congress took place in Stockholm and led to the adoption (approved by all states) of the ‘Stockholm Agenda for Action’, which recommended the implementation of National Action Plans concerning the repression and prevention of commercial sexual exploitation of children.
That child trafficking is a phenomenon which is qualitatively different from trafficking in women for sexual exploitation is only beginning to be acknowledged at the EU level, especially within the European Commission (Terre des Hommes 2004a). However, as reported by various NGOs (Terre des Hommes, 2004b), child trafficking encompasses a wide range of practices including:
• Commercial sexual exploitation (pornography and prostitution) represents the best-known and probably the most widespread form of child trafficking; although victims are usually teenagers of both sexes, girls tend to be over-represented;
• Forced and/or arranged marriages, which concerns mainly young girls;
• Illegal adoption, which concerns babies of both sexes;
• Domestic labour, which concerns mainly teenage girls, at least in Europe;
• Recruitment of children for illicit activities such as theft, burglaries, begging, and welfare fraud;
• Bonded labour;
• Organ extraction is the most controversial form of child trafficking but there is only anecdotal evidence of its occurrence in Europe.
This list is by no means exhaustive but helps demonstrate the multifaceted and complex phenomenon of child trafficking.
Children represent an extremely vulnerable group, both because they can be exploited in many different ways and because of their minority status. As they are dependent on adults for their own survival and well-being, they are entitled to specific rights spelled out by the International Conventions on the Rights of the Child (1989). Although social services are responsible for the protection of children that have been trafficked, their involvement is not systematic (JRF 2007: 58). Two categories of relevant policy actors can be identified. Firstly, the police and highly specialised anti-trafficking units, such as the Central Office against Trafficking in Human Beings in France and the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre constitute the main statutory state agencies dealing with trafficked children. Children’s charities involved in street work such as Barnados as well as children rights activists represent the second category of policy actors.
Ministries of Interior dominate the policy-making process, both in terms of agenda-setting processes and policy outcomes. Thus their response tends to be biased towards law enforcement at the expense of victim protection, as a recent report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) points out in the British case (JRF, 2007).
The remainder of this article examines the ways in which British and French policymakers have incorporated the human trafficking
paradigm within their child protection and immigration frameworks. The case selection is justified by the fact that both countries are countries of destination and transit for foreign minors. Both countries have signed the UN Convention on the rights of the Child, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children. Moreover, although France and Britain have sophisticated child protection systems, these systems operate in significantly different ways (Pringle 1998, Daguerre 1999, 2000).
Policy developments in France and Britain 1996-present
France The legal framework The children judge intervenes when ‘the health, the security or the morality of a minor are in danger or if the conditions of his/her education are severely compromised’ (article 375 of the Civil Code). This is known as the procedure of educational assistance (judicial protection). The administrative protection involves social services departments placed under the responsibility of local authorities (the President of the County Council or Président du Conseil Général). This double system of protection, administrative and judicial, means that most children come under the umbrella of social services intervention (county councils or conseils généraux). Some county councils, such as the County Council of Gironde, have adopted specifically protective guidelines in relation to the treatment of unaccompanied foreign minors2.
Although in theory all minors are entitled to protection regardless of their nationality, in
2 ‘The legal authorities, by making the departments responsible for child protection, requires them to implement the principles of article 3 of the Civil code which states that the legislative framework in relation to child protection is mandatory and must be applied to all children regardless of their nationality. In all circumstances, the child must be protected. The action of the conseil général is based on this mandatory principle’.
(Gironde Magazine, 2005: p.8).
practice, this is not the case, for five reasons.
Firstly, foreign minors are not legally represented except by an ‘administrator ad hoc’
(law of March 2002 concerning parental authority). They live in a legal vacuum.
Secondly, there is no national framework in relation to the care of unaccompanied minors;
thus practices vary depending on local politics.
Thirdly, the number of unaccompanied minors has tripled between 1999 and 2001. Between 1999 and 2001, 3 568 unaccompanied minors were brought into social services in 49 local authorities (Etiemble, 2004:16). Fourthly, social workers are not trained to look after minors with a wide range of psychological, language and health issues (Vidalies, 2001). Lastly, unaccompanied minors are perceived as a difficult population. Local authorities distinguish two categories of young people. The first category encompasses minors who want to integrate themselves into French society; these can be helped. Runaway children, who escape as soon as they can, represent the second category.
In the words of a representative of the French Ministry of Justice3, ‘They are children under influence, very hard to reach. They refuse to co-operate with the child protection services, they run away from care institutions and return to the streets as soon as they can. Nobody knows how to deal with them.’
Scale and awareness of the issue: conflicting definitions Specific interest about human trafficking and general and child trafficking in particular evolved around the issues of prostitution and
‘human slavery’. The rediscovery of child prostitution occurred in the late 1990s with the increased awareness of two phenomena: the visibility of sexual tourism and the reported increase in youth prostitution involving foreign minors from Eastern Europe. In 2002 between 5000 and 8000 minors were ‘selling sex’
according to various NGOs. However, because of a lack of appropriate monitoring and data collection mechanisms, evidence of the
3 Interview with a representative of the French Ministry of Justice (Youth Justice), Paris, May 2005.
involvement of foreign minors in prostitution remains anecdotal. In Paris, estimates vary between 150 to 500 minors involved in prostitution (O’Deye 2003:14). Two categories of non state actors played a prominent role in the trafficking debate in the early 2000s: the child rescue and the abolitionist lobby on the one hand, the Committee against Modern slavery on the other hand.
The first category of actors is represented by NGOs which promote an abolitionist perspective such as the Fondation Scelles and feminists philosophers framed the issue in terms of prostitution targeting mainly young foreign women and girls. A radically different perspective was advocated by the Committee against Modern Slavery. The term encompasses a broader definition of human trafficking as opposed to focus on commercial sexual exploitation only, underlining that this is a human right issue, not only a prostitution/border control issue (Guiraudon, 2006).
Both camps were particularly influential in lobbying for two pieces of legislation under the legislature of the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002) which addressed child prostitution and human trafficking. The first piece of legislation was the Law on Parental Authority (2002). Soliciting, contracting for or obtaining sexual acts from a minor is a crime which can lead to a sentence of three years imprisonment and a 45 000 Euro fine (Article 13.2 of the Civil Code). The law represses clients but makes clear that every minor involved in prostitution, albeit occasionally, is considered to be in danger and is placed under the protection of the children’s judge. Thus it was the issue of the commercial sexual exploitation of children which drew the attention of policymakers. Concern about the wider issue of human trafficking and modern slavery emerged during the same period.
In 2000 the Committee against Modern Slavery raised public awareness of human trafficking. A report about the scope of modern
slavery and human trafficking commissioned by the National Assembly was published in December 2001 (Vidalies, 2001). A legislative proposal on the fight against modern slavery sponsored by the Socialist Party was then adopted unanimously by the National Assembly in January 2002. This proposal was based on the human rights agenda promoted by the Committee against Modern Slavery, and emphasised the need to provide assistance to victims. The focus was not only on the repression of commercial sexual exploitation, as in the Law on Parental Authority, but on all forms of human trafficking in the broadest meaning of the word. The fact that the Socialist Party sponsored the proposal explains why the humanitarian approach was fairly hegemonic at the time.
When the center-right returned to power in May 2002, trafficking was reframed as an irregular migration issue. Foreign prostitutes, including minors, were recast as undesirable aliens or helpless victims who should be sent back home on humanitarian grounds, unless they cooperated with the police to identify their traffickers. Nicolas Sarkozy exploited the link between trafficking and prostitution which had been established by abolitionist and child rescue groups. The Law on Internal Security adopted in March 2003, the Loi de Sécurité Intérieure, created a specific offence for trafficking.
However, the humanitarian approach of the 2002 legislation was abandoned. Thus the 2003 Internal Security Bill fell short on providing assistance and protection for victims (Val Cabraz 2006).
The government’s priority is clearly the fight against organised crime. NGOs seem marginalised in the decision-making process and have no regular contacts with representatives from the Ministries of Interior, Justice and Immigration. In this context, NGOs have formed an umbrella organisation ‘Together against trafficking in human beings’ (Ensemble contre la traite des êtres humains) in order to speak with one single voice regardless of their ideological and political divergences. At present,
and in contrast to the early 2000s, it is mainly though international pressures that the issue of human trafficking is raised in the public arena.
Such lobbying efforts have had a limited impact, however. To date, there is no systematic attempt to gather intelligence on child trafficking. The new child protection law of 5 March 2007 does not make any new provision concerning the situation of unaccompanied minors. This indicates that the issue of child trafficking is not treated as a governmental priority.
Britain The legal framework Under the Children Act 1989 social service departments (SSDs), placed under the responsibility of local authorities (county councils) are required to assess the needs of children. The Act imposes a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children defined as being in need (Phoenix, 2002: 357). As in France, children are entitled to protection regardless of their nationality. Although the British government ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, it made a specific reservation concerning art.22 of the Convention, the provision that guarantees adequate protection for refugee and asylum seeking children.
According to Sales (2007), British immigration policy makes a sharp distinction between young refugees who are accompanied and those who arrive alone. Young accompanied asylum seekers fall within the remit of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) and may be subject to dispersal. Those who enter alone are classified as unaccompanied minors and fall within the remit of the Children Act 1989 and 2004.
The Children Act provides two levels of care and protection. Children are accommodated under section 20 and supported under section 17. Children looked after under section 17 are placed in semi-independent accommodation or beds and breakfasts. As most unaccompanied minors are over 16, they are placed in semi-independent accommodation where they are at particular risk of being trafficked or re-trafficked (ECPAT 2007: 15).
The death of Victoria Climbié at the hands of a great-aunt and her partner in February 2000 resulted in a in a high profile investigation conducted by Lord Laming. The Green Paper Every Child Matters or ECM (2003) was a response to Lord Laming’s inquiry and stated that all children should be kept safe from maltreatment, neglect, violence and sexual exploitation and that they should be provided with stability and security, and cared for.
Although the Children Act and the ECM agenda represent a great step forward, the conflict between the child welfare and immigration control agendas has not been solved. Under section 11 of the Children Act 2004, government agencies such as local authorities, district councils, police, probation services, NHS bodies, youth offending and the prison service are under an obligation ‘to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children’. However, the UK Immigration Service and the Home Office Immigration and nationality Directorate are not covered by this duty (ECPAT 2007:13).
Scale and awareness of the issue The concern with child trafficking is relatively new and is linked with the rising awareness of the incidence of commercial sexual exploitation involving foreign minors. Child trafficking does not appear as a policy concern as such until the late 1990s, under the pressure of NGOs such as ECPAT and UNICEF UK.
National concern about child prostitution can be traced back to the mid-1990s following the work carried out by NGOs such as Barnado’s, which proved extremely influential in child protection. The notion of commercial sexual exploitation increasingly replaced the concept of prostitution. British NGOs used international forums to raise awareness of the issue, especially during the First World Congress on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Stockholm in 1996. Concern about foreign minors emerged as a result of the disappearance of about 66 children of West African origin from the care of West Sussex social services between 1996 and 2001 (Candappa 2003). Since December 2001,
ECPAT UK has run a counter trafficking campaign. NGOs have produced estimates concerning the number of trafficked children.
According to the report published by UNICEF UK in 2003, ‘it is known that at least 250 children have been trafficked in the UK in the last five years. The real figure, however, is likely to be far higher. Many authorities and bodies have only just started recording cases of trafficking. Therefore, the figure 250 is only the tip of the iceberg.’ (UNICEF UK 2003: 17).
The most recent research commissioned by the Home Office estimated that a total of 330 children were either trafficked or at risk of being trafficked (CEOP 2007). According to the study, the types of activities were the following:
sexual exploitation represented 57% of all cases, domestic servitude 22%, cannabis cultivation 6%, benefit fraud 6%, labour exploitation 5%, drug dealing 1%, adoption 1%, servile marriage 1% and begging 1%. Girls represented 50% of the data set, and were trafficked for sexual exploitation (66%) and domestic servitude (22%), but they were also represented in six other types of exploitation (CEOP 2007: 44). In the data set, there was no record of exploitation for 92% of the boys, which suggests that boys
‘may be smuggled rather than trafficked in’
(CEOP 2007: 45). The study also reported that traffickers ‘blatantly’ abused the asylum system.
While the majority of trafficked children enter the UK as unaccompanied minors, some are registered as accompanied minors, especially when they arrive from Eastern and Western Africa. Lastly, the study underlined that 55% of children in the data set went missing from social services, and were portrayed at particular risk of re-trafficking and further exploitation.
The government is caught up between two contradictory imperatives in relation to foreign minors (Giner 2006 and 2007). On the one hand, it must champion the best interests of the child, which are seen as paramount in the Children Act 1989 and 2004. On the other hand, the Labour government is also attempting to reduce the number of asylum-seeking people, a policy which has been extended to asylum-seeking children under Section 9 of the 2004
asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act and under section 11 of the Children Act 2004. As Giner (2006 and 2007) shows, advocacy for foreign minors concentrates on their vulnerability: they are victims ‘par excellence’. NGOs thus
‘essentialise’ foreign minors in order to remind the government of its commitment to the universal child protection agenda. However, the politics of victimhood can backfire and be used for completely different purposes by the state.
Indeed, in a context where asylum policies aim at reducing the number of asylum seekers including children, policies are based on the exclusion of claimants. Additional criteria need to be found to justify the exclusion of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, who account for an increased proportion of
Indeed, in a context where asylum policies aim at reducing the number of asylum seekers including children, policies are based on the exclusion of claimants. Additional criteria need to be found to justify the exclusion of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, who account for an increased proportion of