Wrong kind of victim? Summary Report One year on: an analysis of UK measures to protect trafficked persons

The report focuses on the experience of people who have managed to escape from traffickers or who have been withdrawn from the control of others. In some cases, escape or recovery has allowed the individuals to improve their lives and heal from the trauma of trafficking. In others, the individuals who have been ill-treated by modern-day slave traders have been subject to further violations of their human rights and, in some cases, to treatment at the hands of the UK authorities which has impeded their recovery. The report was compiled using information from public sources, from 90 interviews with professionals engaged in anti-trafficking work and by reviewing 390 individual cases. The information was obtained between September 2009 and April 2010.

The report argues, based on extensive research, that the UK is not yet meeting its obligations under the Convention. The key reasons are that, in implementing the Convention, the Government has:

• misunderstood key provisions of the Convention;
• not addressed the entirety of the Convention;
• delegated considerable authority on identification to a flawed mechanism staffed by substantially
  unaccountable officials;
• overlooked the necessary safeguards for child victims of trafficking in the implementation of the Convention.

The findings of this report suggest that anti-trafficking practice in the UK is not compliant with key concepts relating to the rule of law itself, specifically relating to the principle identified by Lord Bingham (2010)4 that “questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not exercise of discretion”. It is a finding of this research that this principle is routinely violated in the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the identification procedure established as part of the implementation of the Convention to help identify the victims of trafficking.