HUM0079
Written evidence submitted by Azalea
Terms of reference addressed:
Azalea is an anti sex trafficking charity based in Luton, UK, and has other operations nationally and internationally. Both international and domestic sex trafficking are prolific challenges in Luton. At current, Azalea is yet to encounter any men who have been sex trafficked either domestically or internationally in Luton. That is not to say that sex trafficking of men in Luton does not exist, it does mean that they are not able to attend our services OR our services do not appeal to men being sex trafficked.
The scale and nature of human trafficking in the UK: The profile of victims and perpetrators
Luton is a town in Bedfordshire with a population of 286,450 (2019, Eurostat). Over the past 14 years, Azalea has supported a total of 403 women in Luton who are being sex trafficked. Since 2021, Azalea encounters an average of 4 new women being sex trafficked every month. The proceeding statistics are based on the women in Luton who have received support from Azalea since the beginning of 2021.
Encompass: the frontline women’s project within Azalea working with survivors of domestic and international sex trafficking. 100% of the women supported by Encompass are either enduring sex trafficking or are on a path to exiting sex trafficking.
89.5% of Encompass service users are British nationals who have been trafficked domestically and or internationally.
100% of these service users experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs):
100% of service users experienced childhood sexual abuse and/or Child Sexual Exploitation.
‘Boudica’ story (pseudonym used)
Boudica lived with her mum until around age 11. Her mum suffered from drug addiction and was unable to take care of Boudica, and Boudica’s dad was a convicted paedophile. Boudica experienced a great deal of neglect, child sexual abuse, and physical abuse growing up.
Due to the nature of the unhealthy home environment, Boudica was moved into a local children’s home aged 12. Boudica was preyed on by a staff member at the children’s home who had identified her extreme vulnerabilities. He told Boudica that he was going to be her boyfriend and he sexually abused her. He told Boudica that he loved her and that if she was going to be his girlfriend, she would need to engage in sexual activity with his friends. This man sexually exploited Boudica as a child, receiving money for the rape and sexual abuse she was enduring. He would place Boudica in the middle of a room filled with men, and the men would take it in turn to rape her.
At 14, Boudica escaped from the care home and was introduced to drugs. This was the only thing that would stop her from crying. Drugs were how Boudica could numb her emotional and physical pain from the trauma she had experienced her whole life. Her drug dependency escalated at an alarming rate and perpetrators quickly noticed this and used it to their advantage, supporting Boudica’s drug habit for sexual favours/abuse on the streets. During Covid19 lockdown, Boudica was exploited online as well as on the streets. Her primary perpetrator would force her to film videos with violent sexual content and he would arrange for men to come to her property to sexually abuse her for money, so that their drug habits could be sustained. Post-Covid19, Boudica’s perpetrator traffics her out of area, making more money from her sexual abuse than he would make in her local area.
Boudica has never left the UK, she has never had a passport. She has only left the town she was born in to be exploited in other areas. Boudica is an example of domestic sex trafficking.
10.5% of service users within Encompass are from a different country and have been trafficked internationally to the UK.
46% of the international service users are Romanian,
6% are Albanian,
6% are Hungarian,
6% are Latvian,
6% are African,
6% are Egyptian,
6% are Ukrainian,
6% are Polish,
6% are Spanish,
6% are Greek.
‘Bithiah’ story (pseudonym used)
Bithiah was born and raised in an African country. The village that she lived in was dangerous. All of her family members had died, and she was left to care for herself. Traffickers saw Bithiah trying to get by on her own and targeted her for international human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation. They said to Bithiah that there was a respectable job waiting for her in the UK where she would earn lots of money. They arranged her flights and brought her over to the UK. Upon arrival, they kept Bithiah’s ID and travel documents. They took her to what was called a ‘bed and breakfast’ and placed her in a room. She was told that men would be sent to her room, and she had to do whatever they asked. And so, the violations began, Bithiah was continually raped and sexually abused.
One day Bithiah managed to escape the ‘bed and breakfast,’ and get away from the city she was in. She came to Luton and has been working cash in hand jobs since, often cleaning, to get by. She has been doing this for many years. She still has men approach her, preying on her evident vulnerabilities, seeking to sexually exploit her. Bithiah has had to sofa surf, because she has no documents or recourse to public funds. This has often put her in danger. Bithiah was referred to Azalea by a foodbank that she attended. Azalea has supported Bithiah in her referral to the National Referral Mechanism and she is now accessing the support that she desperately needs.
Export from and import to the UK
There is often sufficient comprehension and recorded evidence concerning the import of women to the UK for the purposes of sex trafficking. In UK airport arrivals, there are often posters in toilets and profiling operations that take place to identify people who are being trafficked to the UK for sexual exploitation and other forms of exploitation, including labour exploitation, criminal exploitation, domestic servitude and forced marriage.
However, there is now unambiguous evidence to prove that women from the UK are being exported to other countries for the purposes of sex trafficking. In London Luton Airport, Border Force recognise this and have implemented a screening system in departures, as well as arrivals. This was supported by a case identified and escalated by Azalea and responded to by Azalea, Border Force, and the police at the end of 2022:
‘Diana’ story (pseudonym used)
Diana is a UK citizen and was a victim of Child Sexual Exploitation and abuse as a child and has since been sex trafficked domestically. Diana is now in her 50s and has always resided in the UK. In autumn 2022, Diana came to Azalea stating that she had a new boyfriend, and he was from southeast Europe. As winter approached, she came to Azalea concerned for her safety. She stated that her boyfriend wanted to take her to his family home in southeast Europe for Christmas. He wanted to process her a new passport and book a one-way flight. He was very controlling and forced radical change to her appearance. She expressed these concerns and Azalea supported her to plan a safe exit passage from her perpetrator.
Diana desperately wanted to believe that this man was speaking the truth and experienced extreme mood swings as she swung between believing herself or her perpetrator.
Azalea contacted the police and Border Force to flag this concern. This matter was escalated, and the trafficking operation was intercepted in London Luton Airport departures. It was later confirmed by statutory services, that this man sought to traffic Diana for sexual exploitation in southeast Europe.
In January 2023, the National Insight Team for the Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Unit produced the non-LEA overview of Live Modern Slavery Investigations in UK Policing (data to 14/2/23). This report states that British nationals are the most frequently identified victim nationality, alongside Albanians, Romanians, Vietnamese, Polish, Chinese, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Indian, Bulgarian and Iranian people.
Age – the age ranges of our current service users
16-24 years | 5% |
25-34 years | 30% |
35-44 years | 51% |
45-54 years | 12% |
55-64 years | 2% |
Most of the women that we support are between ages 25 and 44 years old. Many of the women in the 25–34-year-old category are closer to 34 than 25. Our data reveals that the majority of women who access our services are older, rendering them typically less sexually desirable. This usually means that they have more control over their time, because they are less high in demand for sexual services. Typically, sex buyers will pay less for the services of an older woman.
We had a recent case in Luton where a perpetrator had found that customers would pay more if a younger woman (aged early 20s) were to finish the sexual service. Based on this, the perpetrator arranged that women would work in teams, older women beginning the sexual service before swapping with a younger woman who would finish, resulting in higher financial outcomes.
However, older women still very much serve a purpose to sexual exploiters and traffickers in the UK. Older women supported by Encompass (55-64 years old) are still heavily exploited and abused, often by men who have complexes around their mother figure from earlier in life. It has been reported that sometimes the action can be sexual, other times it is less sexual but fulfils an abusive fantasy where the man projects and transfers his mother on to the older exploited woman.
Azalea partners with Bedfordshire Police Modern Slavery Team on warrants and operations tackling cases of international human trafficking. The women being sex trafficked that are found through international police warrants are younger. For example, on the most recent warrant attended by Azalea, two women were removed from the property aged 21 and 22. These women are highly desirable to sex buyers and traffickers and so they are kept inside a property where they can be exploited to the maximum. They are unable to attend our services because they have no control over their time and are extremely isolated.
Profiles of perpetrators
Flint: the frontline project within Azalea which supports men with strong temptations, to significantly reduce their purchase of sex (the demand for sex trafficking). Developed by a dedicated team which includes a Counsellor and Solution Focused Practitioner, the Flint programme can help men to deal with shame, mend damaged relationships and recover a healthy and fulfilling attitude to sex.
Profiles of Flint clients (men who purchase sex/perpetrators) based on all clients supported by Flint so far:
20% are Muslim men,
80% are white British men,
60% are from affluent areas.
These statistics challenge stereotypes often perpetuated in mainstream media.
The scale and nature of human trafficking in the UK: The gendered aspects of human trafficking (sex trafficking in particular)
It is common that service users who initially engage with Encompass as victims/survivors of sex trafficking, at some stage become perpetrators of other women, whilst still being victims/survivors. To survive in the world of sex trafficking, and to reduce (not eliminate) the suffering and abuse sustained personally, a woman being sex trafficked will perpetrate others. Women who have been sex trafficked will prey on often younger women with noticeable vulnerabilities such as substance addictions, homelessness, poor mental health and learning difficulties.
Thus, as much as often men are perpetrators and women are survivors/victims, this is not always the case. Flint is aware that men who are deemed perpetrators can equally be victims, often surviving trauma from current or historic abuse.
Through frontline mentoring of men, Flint has heard evidence to support that the time spent in the actual provision of paid sexual activity varies between five and ten minutes, but male clients often purchase much longer periods of time for the purpose of conversation and ‘relational intimacy’ with an exploited woman who is willing to listen, empathise and converse as part of the service she offers.
This desperate need for closeness and relational intimacy is indicative of a lack of these qualities in their lives, which are often accompanied by a deep sense of shame, failure, isolation, and hopelessness. Furthermore, all forms of violence, whether sexual, physical, or emotional, are a learned behaviour. Whether a man learns violence from watching pornography or through witnessing violence in the family home, they have been exposed to something that is damaging.
A man’s need for relational intimacy is not being fulfilled, which can be a major factor in them perpetuating sex trafficking.
A quote from a man who completed the Flint mentoring program: “I did genuinely want to change, I wanted to be happier...it’s just that I didn’t know how...Eventually, I stopped visiting brothels, and even porn sites too. I started to face up more to the difficulties and challenges in my life.”
This quote supports that the exploitation of women and purchasing of sexual services is not the root of the problem for men, but the fruit. The ‘fruit’, or presenting behaviours, evidenced by self-destructive sexuality are inevitably rooted in past hurts, traumas or attachment issues that grip the mind, will, emotions and conscience in a seemingly intractable physiological, psychological and spiritual bondage. Any deep sense and cycle of shame, failure, isolation and hopelessness (roots) must be broken before presenting behaviours can be effectively and permanently changed.
The scale and nature of human trafficking in the UK: The role of technology in facilitating human trafficking
During the Covid19 pandemic, our outreach team saw a maintained number of women being trafficked and exploited on the streets of Luton amidst the lockdown regulations. However, it transpired that exploitation was now also heavily taking place off-street and online. Perpetrators were using websites and mobile phones to orchestrate exploitation in properties. This method of trafficking and exploitation has continued and developed.
We have had reports from service users that the website Adultwork is being used by perpetrators to advertise multiple women in Luton online for sexual exploitation. The perpetrator will advertise the women separately, though advertise the same contact number, which will be his so that he has control over the arrangements and most importantly the finances. Multiple women will also be advertised as being at the same property. This is a resource and time efficient way for perpetrators to exploit multiple women at once.
Police are aware of this and now use methods of scanning such websites to understand which properties and mobile numbers are appearing regularly, to be able to obtain warrants to target traffickers and exploiters.
Due to this Azalea is developing online outreach, which will allow support to be offered to women who are controlled inside properties.
Thus, the use of technology already is and is progressively becoming more prevalent in the facilitation of sex trafficking in the UK. It needs to become more prevalent in the prevention strategy and fight against sex trafficking in the UK.
Furthermore, there has been consistent evidence that over the course of the Covid19 pandemic, there were significant increases in the number of people accessing pornography through websites including OnlyFans and PornHub. These websites and others have been accessed by the younger demographic, with many cases of children in primary schools accessing pornography. Women that we work with stated that during Covid19 they were being approached by young boys for their first sexual experience because they had been targeted by OnlyFan advertisements. The violent content that they had seen on OnlyFans was then reflected in their interaction with the women who they were sexually abusing. In this instance, both the young boys and the women are victims to how technology facilitates sex trafficking.
Due to the increase in demand, traffickers and exploiters have increased reason to produce more content for sites such as PornHub and OnlyFans. Not only are the women in pornography often exploited and trafficked, but there is also a substantial correlation between people who watch pornography and who purchase sex from people who are being trafficked and exploited. Thus, the pornography industry and the huge age range that it now targets and is reaching is heavily perpetuating sex trafficking specifically and human trafficking in general.
How effective is the UK’s approach to discouraging the demand that leads to trafficking?
In its official document: Human Trafficking: The Government’s Strategy, we find the following statement:
‘The UK has a good record in tackling human trafficking. That is something we must build on. Our new strategy for tackling human trafficking has four key aims: international action to stop trafficking happening in the first place; a stronger border at home to stop victims being brought into the UK; tougher law enforcement action to tackle the criminal gangs that orchestrate the crime; and improved identification and care for the victims of trafficking.’
(Foreword by the Home Secretary)
Is there a national collaborative strategy to reduce the number of men who use/purchase the services of women who are trafficked, both within the UK, or from overseas?
Suggestions and Flint’s mission:
Both relational mentoring and accountability have proven to be phenomenally successful. 100% of Flint clients who have finished the program have ceased purchasing sex.
The Flint team has now started practicing an integrated, dual approach to mentoring that seeks to both address the 'root' issues that can deprive an individual of the strength and will to change, and to create personal ‘visions’ for a future.
The first element: Flint practices Solution Focused (SF); a tried and trusted therapy that lifts an individual out of hopelessness and inaction by harnessing the imagination to develop an expectation for better days ahead.
The second element: In conjunction with SF, Flint mentors offer a ‘mind renewal’ programme, with the premise that what we believe in our minds determines the quality of our emotions, from which ensue either constructive or unhelpful behaviours. By assimilating targeted truths that progressively undermine negative frameworks of thinking rooted in the past, a renewed strength and will to change can be secured for the future.
Please see Jeremy’s story (pseudonym) on the Azalea website.
It has been empowering for women trapped in sex trafficking to see Azalea drive forward solutions for men who feel equally trapped in purchasing sex. 10% of our Flint referrals have come through women who are domestically and internationally sex trafficked.
Note: Any names used in this report are pseudonyms to protect the identity of the people that we work and walk with at Azalea.
March 2023
|
|
|