Connarty Calls On PM To Back Scotland's Children's Commissioner.

Michael Connarty has called on Prime Minister David Cameron to back Scotland's children's commissioners report on child trafficking.

MICHAEL CONNARTY CALLS ON CAMERON TO BACK SCOTLAND’S CHILDREN’S COMMISSIONER ON CHILD TRAFFICKING

For the third time in eight months Linlithgow and East Falkirk MP, Michael Connarty, pressed David Cameron in the Commons today on the government’s failure to tackle human trafficking, especially of children.

He also put the PM on the spot on why the government has not acted on two important recommendations of Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People in his recent report ‘Scotland: a safe place for child traffickers?’ These are:

The appointment of an independent human trafficking rapporteur, accountable to the UK Parliament, with a specific focus on children and young people, with responsibility for the collection, monitoring and analysis of data.
The establishment of a strengthened guardianship scheme to support child victims of trafficking

Despite the UK government giving in and signing up to the EU Directive on Human Trafficking, it has emerged that the expert Home Office team has been scrapped, including the expert in charge of anti-trafficking policy, and specialist police teams have been abandoned.

Michael Connarty told David Cameron, “By cutting specialist Home Office and police teams – how can he assure us the UK has the resources to implement the new EU Directive on human Trafficking?”

Michael said, “The recent Scotland’s Commissioner for Children report identified up to 200 children trafficked in Scotland, a figure backed up by charity, ECPAT UK, which has identified nearly 1000 cases in the UK. Yet no child traffickers have yet been convicted. The report was an excellent piece of work, making important recommendations for the UK and Scotland which would make a massive difference to child victims.

“This shocking situation requires urgent action, not warm words. Right across Scotland and the UK, people are disgusted by this repulsive criminal activity. Once again David Cameron said he would look into this, but so far it’s one step forward and two steps back. These poor children deserve much better.”