The Home Office funds the POPPY scheme, managed by Eaves Housing for Women in London, which can accommodate up to 25 adult women at any one time on a rolling basis. This scheme provides safe accommodation and a range of support services, such as counselling, health checks, translation and interpretation services and access to legal advice for female victims who have been trafficked into prostitution, provided the victims are willing to come forward to, and actively assist the authorities.
In April this year we extended the funding for the scheme to £2.4 million over the next two years. As well as funding the 25 crisis spaces this funding will allow for 10 additional “step-down” places, the introduction of a specialist national outreach service and the development of a resource information pack for victims, service providers and law enforcement agency staff.
Additionally on 3 October I launched the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre which will become a central point for the development of police expertise and operational co-ordination as part of the delivery of an end to end victim-centred strategy to combat human trafficking. As part of its work the centre has begun to develop close links with those non-governmental organisations focused on providing support for victims.
We are currently considering whether to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. We are examining how the Convention’s approach could best be harmonised with effective immigration controls.
It remains difficult to make an accurate assessment of the extent of the trafficking problem. There are no statistics that clearly indicate the precise number of women or children trafficked to the UK, although intelligence suggests there has been an increase over the last two or three years. The emerging findings from a Home Office research paper due to be published in 2007 suggests that at any one time in 2003 there were in the region of 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution in the UK.
The analysis of information obtained from Operation Pentameter will assist in further developing our understanding of the scale of the problem in this area. In relation to the subject of child trafficking into the UK, we have commissioned the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to scope both its scale and nature.
Referral figures from the POPPY Project show that there have been 161 women referred to the project in the period December 2005 to October 2006.
It remains difficult to make an accurate assessment of the extent of the trafficking problem. There are no statistics that clearly indicate the precise number of women trafficked to the UK within the last 12 months, although intelligence suggests there has been an increase over the last two or three years. The emerging findings from a Home Office research paper due to be published in 2007 suggests that at any one time in 2003 there were in the region of 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution in the UK.
An analysis of information obtained from Operation Pentameter will assist in further developing out understanding of the scale of the problem in this area.
It remains difficult to make an accurate assessment of the extent of the trafficking problem. There are no statistics that clearly indicate the precise number of women trafficked to the UK over the last 10 years, although intelligence suggests there has been an increase over the last two or three years. The emerging findings from a Home Office research paper due to be published in 2007 suggests that at any one time in 2003 there were in the region of 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution in the UK.
An analysis of information obtained from Operation Pentameter will assist in further developing our understanding of the scale of the problem in this area.