Sex trafficking victims will get better treatment in Britain as police, courts understand their plight
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Britain's new anti-slavery commissioner apologised on Wednesday to a victim of sex trafficking who said she had called the police for help but was sent to a detention centre and threatened with deportation.
Kevin Hyland made the apology as trafficking survivors told a women's rights conference the reaction of police, prosecutors and judges to their plight called into question the authorities' willingness to help them.
One woman from Africa, identified only as Ellie, said she had been promised a better life abroad, but was instead trafficked to Britain to work as a prostitute.
"On a very bad day I was beaten up. I called the police, I couldn't stand it any more," she told the conference. "The police came. I spoke to them. They didn't believe me. They didn't even listen to me."
"The next thing I knew I was in a removal centre to be deported back," she told the Trust Women conference, organised by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Her account prompted Hyland, named by the Home Office (interior ministry) last week as Britain's first anti-slavery commissioner, to apologise for the woman's treatment.
"Less than a week after I was appointed in this role, I have to stand here and apologise to Ellie for the lack of response in the United Kingdom to support her properly," Hyland said to loud applause.
"What happened to Ellie was wrong. My job .... is to make sure we do not have situations like this."
Another victim of trafficking said she was denied justice because her case was not taken seriously by judicial authorities back home in Colombia.
Marcela Loaiza was a 21-year-old single mother who was desperately looking for a way to pay hospital fees for her sick daughter when she was trafficked.
She was promised a job as a professional dancer but ended up being forced to sell sex on the streets of Tokyo by members of Japan's Yakuza or mafia. She eventually escaped after persuading a client to help her.
"I went back to my country. I reported my case. My case disappeared. I remember when I went to the judge and told my story. The judge told me ... are you sure you didn't know you were going into prostitution?" Loaiza said.
"How are you supposed to feel when, when you go for help, the judge makes you feel guilty?"
The chief prosecutor for Britain's northwest region, Nasir Afzal, acknowledged the state had let victims down in the past.
But, he said, the authorities in Britain are getting better at identifying and tackling trafficking, and cited convictions in high-profile cases including a sex grooming scandal in the northern town of Rochdale.
"That sent out a message more widely to others, that they (victims) need to be believed and listened to," Afzal said. (Editing by Tim Pearce)
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