A key feature of the Scottish Enlightenment was the critique and opposition to the practice of slavery. Â While in the eighteenth century many Scottish emigrants to the Caribbean and West Indies found themselves exposed to the realities of slave labour on plantations, back home an intellectual movement grew and developed and campaigned until slavery was abolished.
Or so they thought. Modern day slavery in the form of human trafficking is still there on Scottish doorsteps. But just as in the eighteenth century, it should be Scotland’s mission again to rid our country and then the world of this heinous violation of human rights.
An Inquiry into Human Trafficking in Scotland, headed by leading QC Baroness Helena Kennedy and carried out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was published in Edinburgh this week. Kennedy makes 10 recommendations for Scotland to pioneer a new approach to the problem, and to introduce these measures prior to the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Kennedy’s calls comes on the back of Scotland’s first successful prosecution under the UK’s new anti-trafficking laws, with two sex traffickers jailed for a total of almost five years in November for arranging travel, accommodation and advertising for 14 women who worked as prostitutes.  However, this compares with almost 150 similar prosecutions in England and Wales. Phil Taylor, head of the UK Border Agency in Scotland, conceded in June that the length of time taken to investigate cases means too few are brought to court.
The main call in Kennedy’s inquiry is for a victim centred approach, with better systematic sharing of information and intelligence about cases, as well as a new Scottish act specifically to target the crime.
While any human who is trafficked and forced to labour undergoes a horrendous experience, Kennedy notes especially that women trafficked into the sex trade undergo “the most prevalent and pernicious manifestation of human enslavement”.
The estimate, widely reported in the UK press, that 40,000 women were sex trafficked into Germany for the 2006 World Cup seems to have no reliable source; nonetheless such sporting events are paramount to raising awareness and ensuring prevention of the prostitution of vulnerable women.
In London, anti-trafficking charities, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Met and the GLA  are working together to combat trafficking prior to the 2012 Olympics. If Scotland is going to be the leader in ridding the world of human trafficking, it is critical that the 10 recommendations in Kennedy’s inquiry are implemented prior to 2014.  Not just because of a fear, like in the 2006 World Cup case, that trafficking only becomes a problem because of sporting events, but because this a heinous crime which is all around us, at all times.
We should use the celebration of nationhood and sport and togetherness that the Commonwealth Games brings to recognise our essential humanity, and to find ways to treat human beings as that, not as chattels to be traded and used.
#1 by Alec on November 30, 2011 - 9:55 am
>> While in the eighteenth century many Scottish emigrants to the Caribbean and West Indies found themselves exposed to the realities of slave labour on plantations,
And for a fair few of them these “realities” were the mercantile ones, and they found them highly agreeable! The attempt to present Scotland as a passive victim of Empire or a singular source of dissent has been discussed by, amongst others, Geoff Palmer.
But, yes, the contemporary events are appalling.
~alec
#2 by Indy on November 30, 2011 - 11:46 am
I feel she has slightly dodged the whole prostitution issue. I know a lot of people see prostitution as a moral issue primarily and for others it is a feminist debate but really in practical terms if we want to make Scotland a hostile environment for traffickers, as she argues, that does surely also mean making it a hostile environment for prositution or the sex trade or whatever people want to call it (though I personally find the description of prostitutes as sex workers slightly comical.)
#3 by Doug Daniel on November 30, 2011 - 2:16 pm
Surely the environment is already hostile enough for those in the sex trade? Glasgow seems to have declared war on those who sell sex, shutting down all the massage parlours/saunas/whatever they’re called in the city. So now the women who worked in those establishments, surrounded by colleagues who could give them some protection from unsavoury characters, are presumably working on their own, or working from even dodgier places, pushing them closer to the criminal elements. Worse still, they may have been pushed onto the streets. Not only is this doing nothing to stop trafficking, it’s making things even less safe for those who have made a concious choice to enter the world’s oldest profession, or forcing others out of their chosen job.
Besides which, I bet there are more trafficked immigrants working outwith the sex trade than within it. So that wouldn’t be solving the problem.
#4 by Indy on November 30, 2011 - 2:34 pm
Clearly it isn’t hostile enough because it is happening – have you not read all of the stuff in the press about Govanhill etc? I’m not saying it can be seen in isolation but it’s part of the mix. If these people think they can get away with bringing over girls and setting them up in flats rented from rogue landlords then they’ll do it – they’ve been doing it. There was even one opposite a school!
If people could make a conscious choice to become prostitutes they obviously wouldn’t end up in that kind of situation in the first place. Who would choose to get run by a gangster? Obviously they haven’t chosen that.
#5 by Doug Daniel on November 30, 2011 - 12:12 pm
I’m always slightly uncomfortable when it comes to the reporting of sex trafficking, because it’s hard to differentiate between those who are railing against people being forced into sex work, and those who are against the profession as a whole, defining sex work as violence against women and blithely assuming that all sex workers are women being forced to sell themselves to men, as they cannot comprehend the idea that a woman might enter the industry completely of her own free will. It also conveniently ignores the presence of gay males in the industry.
The article you link to about sex trafficking during the 2006 World Cup highlights this excellently, such as here: “These three media representations represent the World Cup story in three different ways. The first claims a massive sex trafficking operation of innocent, deprived victims. The second is ambiguous: a flood of women, but due to their own choice or not? The third uses the term “offer their services,†framing sex workers as strategic and willing economic opportunists.”
Media reports always tell us that the number of people trafficked into the country is X amount, “but is likely to be much higher”. As far as I’m aware, anyone moving to Scotland of their own free will with the sole intention of selling sexual services is technically classed as “sex trafficking”, even though there is a complete absence of coercion. In fact, it would even class a Glasgow native travelling to Edinburgh to sell their services (most likely to lessen the chances of being booked by someone they know). As I say, this is “as far as I’m aware”, so I could be wrong, but I think it was a Nick Davies article that I read it in, and he’s the best journalist in Britain.
It’s a troublesome area, but it’s not helped by those with an agenda misreporting numbers. That’s without even going into the whole argument of whether prostitution of the body is any worse than prostitution of the mind, because for every sex worker who doesn’t enjoy their work and only does it because they have no other way of earning money, there are a whole lot more people doing crappy, soul-destroying, menial jobs because it’s the only job they can get.
Basically, we need to get a bit of cold-faced realism in place if we’re to properly combat sex trafficking.
#6 by Indy on November 30, 2011 - 1:03 pm
Yes but the reality of the “sex trade” these days is that it is as likely to be a 16 yr old Roma girl as it is to be someone who has other options and has made the choice to be a prostitute.
At the end of the day, as I see it, the level of trafficking, like any other business, will largely depend on how easy it is to get the product onto the market. So we do need to consider that aspect of it and decide what we see as most important.
#7 by Doug Daniel on November 30, 2011 - 2:32 pm
“it is as likely to be a 16 yr old Roma girl as it is to be someone who has other options and has made the choice to be a prostitute.”
Where’s the proof for that statement though? Only those who actually buy or sell sex would have any idea how true that statement could be, although even then it would be anecdotal evidence. But it sounds like the sort of thing Julie Burchill and feminist groups come out with, and with a compliant media that feels no need to investigate the validity of the claims any further, it gets perpetuated until it becomes “fact”. That section I quoted is a perfect example of that.
“the level of trafficking, like any other business, will largely depend on how easy it is to get the product onto the market. So we do need to consider that aspect of it and decide what we see as most important.”
I bet decriminalising brothels, turning them into legitimate businesses and making them follow the same rules as any other business, would do far more to stop sex trafficking than clamping down harder on prostitution. It would also avoid turning a whole bunch of people into criminals who have made a concious decision to sell sex.
#8 by Indy on November 30, 2011 - 2:42 pm
Because the police are rescuing them when they can. I thought you lived in Glasgow? Don’t you read the papers?
Also, you are wrong about decriminalising prostitution and the link with trafficking. That is actually my whole point.
What you are arguing is the opposite of the truth. You should read up on this. Everyone thinks that Sweden takes such a hardline stance because of political reasons and maybe that is part of it but it’s very practical too because trafficking is much less of a problem for them than elsewhere.
I think we have to look at this logically. The argument for decriminalising/legalising prostitution was always based on the idea that this was how to break the link with organised crime. But that has not happened. Rather, it actually makes it easier both for the pimps and the traffickers.
Whatever people think about prostitution, the morals of it or whatever else, I think that needs to be put to one side and just look at the evidence and make a judgement about what is the priority.
#9 by Doug Daniel on November 30, 2011 - 4:25 pm
Most of GCC’s hardline stance antics seem to have occurred after I came back to Aberdeen – busting the massage parlours, the stushie with the lapdancing club flyers etc. As for reading papers, I actually don’t (except for bits of the Press & Journal), and I certainly wouldn’t have bothered reading the Evening Times when I lived there. I see no point in paying for propaganda!
Perhaps the Swedish approach has lead to less of a trafficking problem. But that comes at the cost of some pretty draconian laws against prostitutes from what I understand. But I guess this is where you’re saying the question of priority has to come in, in which case I agree that morality has to be taken out of the equation. The thing is, it’s pretty difficult for that to happen – after all, any (male) politician that brings up prostitution in any form except to try and increase laws against it is guaranteed to have the media thinking there’s a sex scandal scoop to be found, rather than accepting that people should just be free to seek employment in whichever way they see fit, as long as it isn’t harming others. But until morality is taken out of the equation (as well as the ridiculous notion from militant feminists that all sexual services are violence against women – and as I say, if nothing else that completely ignores the fact gay males do it too), there’s not a hope in hell of knowing the true extent of trafficking in the sex trade, never mind properly dealing with it.
#10 by Barbarian on November 30, 2011 - 8:33 pm
I work in Bothwell Street in Glasgow, and there are *ahem* business transactions ongoing within a 2 block radius. Not all are 16 year old Roma girls. I was picking my son up from the city centre a few months ago, and was stopped at (ironically) a red traffic light. This woman came up to my car and asked if I was looking for business! She was ages with me.
Personally, I think prostitution should be legalised. I’ve never used the services nor will do, but I feel it is one way to try and protect vulnerable women, and sometimes men, from the brutality of their controllers.
People trafficking needs to be punished in the harshest manner. I rate it worse than drug trafficking, since the victims are not treated as humans but merchandise.
We cannot stop it all, but there needs to be more done to prevent it.
#11 by Barbarian on November 30, 2011 - 8:35 pm
I should point out that in my above comment that the phrase “ages me with” meant she was of a similar age, not that I was taking up too much of her time!!
Note to self: check before submission……
#12 by Indy on December 1, 2011 - 8:52 am
I take Doug and Barbarian’s points and I certainly don’t want to see prostitutes being locked up in jail. But at the same time I am quite attracted to the Swedish model, which has also been adopted in Norway and Iceland I believe, precisely because it doesn’t criminalise the prostitutes, it criminalises the punters. So it’s not against the law to sell sex, it is against the law to buy it. Like any law I am sure it is not completely effective, I dare say there continues to be prostitution, but the risk is placed on the buyers not the sellers. They are the ones who run the risk of ending up in court and I would imagine that makes them a bit more careful and a bit less likely to run the risk of buying sex from someone who may have been trafficked or who may be acting under compulsion. Because it would be the punter who would be looking at a jail term if that was the case – and I think that would also be a better deterrent to traffickers which is probably why the Nordic countries don’t seem to have as big a problem as other European countries.
However obviously there would need to be a lot more debate around it before any changes were made and of course there are arguments against the Nordic approach as well as arguments in favour of it. I just thought it was strange that the issue wasn’t really addressed head on in the report.
#13 by Doug Daniel on December 1, 2011 - 1:12 pm
But that law doesn’t even make sense. Imagine if it was made legal to sell drugs, but remained illegal to buy them. You can’t legalise the supply but criminalise the demand. It sends mixed messages to people – is it okay to do it, or isn’t it? Besides, it’s still moralising, and there are issues with regards to the men involved too – there are men out there who are completely incapable of forming a relationship with a woman, for entirely innocent reasons. Or what about men whose wives have died and they have no desire to replace her emotionally, but can’t escape the fact that they have certain physical needs? Who are we as a society to tell them that they cannot seek the company of women in the only way that seems possible for them, by turning them into criminals for doing so?
Regulate it. Get girls off the street, make sure they’re getting regular health checks, have them working in a secure environment… and get them paying taxes!
#14 by douglas clark on December 3, 2011 - 2:02 am
I think all drugs should be available through chemists. I appear to be in a minority (perhaps of one) in taking the view that we are all personally responsible for ourselves. It is a sort of Darwin Awards approach to drugs.
As with drugs, so with prostitution. It seems obvious to me that prostitution, and the punter are having standards of behaviour required of them that don’t apply to any other consenting relationship.
I do not think that a man paying for sex is a crime nor vice versa.
What if the women are being forced into the transaction?
Well, that is the point of the OP. Making anyone do anything against their will is almost certainly a crime. As it should be in relation to vulnerable women.
It seems to me that if any of them turned Queens evidence, then they should be guaranteed citizenship and their pimps locked away for a very long time, or extradited if that was possible.
#15 by Indy on December 3, 2011 - 7:55 am
I tend to agree with that point on drugs – well I don’t believe all drugs should be available to buy over the counter but I think we ought to look at prescribing drugs. And that ties into Doug’s point about regulating prostitution. Because where it is regulated, it’s a requirement that the girls (or boys) should be drug free. Therefore regulation would make no difference really to the vast majority of street prostitures, because they are on drugs. So it would be more sensible in my view to consider prescribing drugs for them rather than to pretty much turn a blind eye to the fact that they are prostituting themselves in order to get money to buy drugs.
#16 by Barbarian on December 3, 2011 - 1:52 pm
I agree with your point on drugs, but there are exceptions such as Crystal Meth which should never be legalised.
On the trafficking, there is another non-sexual side, and it is open to every to see.
In Glasgow city centre there are a number of eastern european women who beg, day in and day out. The same faces in the same spots for at least three years. If you hang around long enough and carefully watch, you will see a man of the same ethnic group “chatting” to these women. He’s collecting their takings. This isn’t some jakey after money for the bus home, but organised street collections. It needs to be stopped.