Campaign Against Trafficking
 | Vulnerable and trusting, children are always easy prey and innocent casualties in any disaster situation. The war in Iraq has sadly been no exception. |
According to many recent media reports, trafficking of children in Iraq is becoming a growing problem. Corruption, poverty and weak border controls have paved the way for criminal gangs to sell children more and more easily. Many Iraqis face extreme poverty and hardship. Living in internally displaced people (IDP) camps, many having lost their husbands due to the war, they have no income. They can barely take care of themselves and daily struggle to take care of their families. They believe that when they hand their children over they are offering them a better life than they can provide themselves. Traffickers often pose as NGO workers to deceive families into believing the lies that they will provide well for their children. They meet with families and negotiate using official looking paperwork before taking their children. Unscrupulous government employees will help by falsifying documents in return for a bribe. It has been reported that staff of private orphanages have sometimes been complicit in trafficking young girls into forced prostitution. Trafficking in the UKThis shocking problem is also growing in the UK. Children are being smuggled in on the backs of lorries or through our airports with false papers. Between April and December 2008, local authorities rescued 957 children who had been trafficked into the UK. Over 5% of these children came from Iraq alone. Despite the best efforts of the British authorities, even those children who are identified as being trafficked and taken into care frequently fall back into the hands of the traffickers. For every eight children rescued, one will escape, having been pre-warned by the traffickers. What is TraffickingThe term trafficking disguises what this problem is. Trafficking is just another form of human slavery, another attempt to devalue a human life. Children are trafficked into many different types of exploitation, from forced labour to prostitution, domestic servitude, begging, forced marriage, organ removal, ritual killing, camel jockeying and mystic practices. Trafficking can be hard to spot as it is not always without the consent of the child being trafficked. The UN defines human trafficking as the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through the use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploitation. Basically, no matter the recruitment method, if the purpose is for exploitation it is human trafficking. And this modern day form of human slavery is taking place on our doorstep. It is under our noses, yet invisible to us. Make a StandHelp us put an end to child trafficking. Write to your MP to ask them what they are doing to put a stop to such barbaric practices. Download our sample letter* >> Find out who your local MP is >> *Resources supplied by Stop the Traffik. Join our fight for justice... Donate Now >> | |
