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My name is Helena Kennedy and I’m chairing this inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland,
and I’m asking you, organisations all round Scotland, to help me to make Scotland a hostile
place to human traffickers.
Human trafficking is a human rights abuse. It happens all over the world and in many
ways it’s the underbelly of globalisation – the things that make markets work, the
ability to cross borders, the greater ease of travelling, electronic transfer of money
– many of those things which make legitimate markets work, also help illegitimate markets
to work and there are markets in human beings used to work in the most unacceptable ways.
Sometimes it’s migrant workers who are being exploited but sometimes it’s women and children
being exploited for *** purposes in the most degrading ways. Is this a problem in
Scotland? Well, it’s hard to know the levels of human trafficking because often it’s
out of sight, it’s invisible. But what we do know is that it’s certainly happening
at some level and we want to uncover that which is invisible, and to do so we need your
help – where any of you know that flats in your building might be being used for these
purposes by organised crime, but even in ways that don’t seem very organised can be organised
away from your eyes. Any information that you may have as health workers, as people
working in social services, any information that you can provide to us would be hugely
valuable in putting together the kind of laws and systems in Scotland that will make Scotland
a place that will be a hostile environment to this kind of human rights abuse. So I’m
asking for your help – particularly important because, although the level may not be very
high yet, the onset of the Commonwealth Games is something that makes us anxious to have
in place systems that will make it very clear - human trafficking can’t take place in
Scotland.
I want to thank you for listening and any help you can give us we would be grateful
for. I look forward to reading and listening to your responses. But don’t forget you
may have pieces of information that will help us, with the powers that be, the police, with
the legal system, to put in place the very rules and regulations which will stop this
happening in our communities.