The upside of Covid - and the downside of Brexit - when it comes to human trafficking

Covid is keeping human trafficking for forced prostitution at bay - but Brexit could lead to deaths when lockdown comes to an end, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.
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Rob Richardson, head of the NCA’s Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit, told the JPIMedia Investigations team that restrictions on social contact have led to a fall in women being flown over to the UK to be exploited, saying “if you’d excuse my langugage, providing sexual services is a contact sport”.

But, while he said there is currently “not a demand to bring more sex workers into the country”, trafficking victims already here remain under the control of gangsters.

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“Organised crime groups will use increases in debt bondage [where women are forced to work to repay a debt that is never repaid] to continue to control their victims and they will effectively make use of the workforce that is already in the UK,” he said.

Police officers in forensic suits in Essex with a lorry, in which 39 people died while being trafficked (Picture: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)Police officers in forensic suits in Essex with a lorry, in which 39 people died while being trafficked (Picture: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Police officers in forensic suits in Essex with a lorry, in which 39 people died while being trafficked (Picture: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

Mr Richardson, whose unit works with police forces across the nation to tackle trafficking gangs, also voiced his worry that Britain’s stricter border controls following its exit from the European Union (EU) will lead to a spike in deadly smuggling methods.

He said: “You will probably see the phenomenon of high-risk methodologies to get people into the country - lorries and small boats.

“One of the things we have been monitoring closely is, do organised crime groups that are involved in slavery use that methodology to get people into the country?

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“And the answer is no. Generally, those high-risk methodologies for people smuggling are used by regular migrants who are paying organised crime groups to get them across.

An Unbroken Chain: Modern Slavery in the UKAn Unbroken Chain: Modern Slavery in the UK
An Unbroken Chain: Modern Slavery in the UK

“We are not seeing it now, nevertheless there is a risk that could happen in the future.

“That’s our primary concern, because then you are talking about saving lives at sea and people dying in the back of lorries, which is something we definitely don’t want to happen.”

The most common clandestine ways for thousands of people to be smuggled into the UK every year are in shipping containers, small boats, or lorries and other commercial vehicles transported by rail or ferry, the NCA said.

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But the routes are hazardous, with Coastguard rescuers routinely called to help migrants attempting to cross the Channel, with hundreds dying since the turn of the Millennium, according to research from The Institute of Race Relations released last year.

Hiding people in the back of lorries, where oxygen is scarce, isn’t much safer.

In January, seven men were jailed after 39 men, women, and children from Vietnam were found dead in an airtight container on the back of a lorry in Essex in October 2019.

The victims were being illegally smuggled into the UK and had paid the men large sums of money ahead of the dangerous passage.

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“We were called to a scene that no officer could ever have prepared for,” Ch Con Ben-Julian Harrington of Essex Police said following the men’s sentencing.

“I know the officers who attended that morning will never forget what they saw in that trailer.”

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