Immigration Solicitors

Police in Wales are cracking down on criminals who exploit vulnerable individuals and treat them as modern-day slaves.

In March, Welsh Assembly Minister for Local Government and Business Lesley Griffiths told delegates to the “From Victim to Survivor Conference” at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium that police and government officials in Wales would employ a new “joined up” approach to tracking down criminal gangs who practise modern-day slavery.

“We will find you,” Ms Griffiths warned the slave gangs.

“It’s a sad indictment that I’m here talking to you in 2014 about slavery – modern slavery is here and it is happening in Wales,” she said.

Police in Wales are working with local councils and other agencies to detect those who work in slave industries such as the sex trade as a result of human trafficking.

The Wales Anti Human Trafficking and Slavery Training Group and the Welsh Assembly are working together to raise public awareness of the issues of modern-day slavery in Wales, with a poster campaign and TV advertisements to highlight human trafficking and slavery. The public are being encouraged to report any suspicions they have about an individual who may have been trafficked – or those operating as human traffickers or modern-day slave gangs.

Wales Online reports that a man and a woman were jailed at Newport Crown Court earlier this year for trafficking two women aged 25 and 26 to the UK from the Czech Republic and forcing them to work as prostitutes in Cardiff.

The women had willingly agreed to travel to the UK and had bought flights to Luton Airport, but were only given half the earnings they had previously agreed with their traffickers and soon found themselves “destitute and desperate”.

Czech national Ladislav Kurina, 29, was jailed for two years and seven months after he pleaded guilty to four charges of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Romanian national Angelika Bacan, 26, received a 15-month suspended sentence for being a willing accessory and also working as a prostitute. She was also charged with possession of a stun gun.

The number of people trafficked in Wales is increasing – in the year 2011-2012, there was a 48% rise in the number of individuals trafficked, with one-third being trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and 10 of those trafficked aged under 17.

The UK’s first anti-slavery co-ordinator is based in Wales. Stephen Chapman said that a multi-agency approach was essential to tackle human trafficking and modern-day slavery.

“From the police and CPS, to those caring for survivors – it’s important all work together to identify and encourage them to come forward, so those responsible are brought to justice,” said Mr Chapman.

The UK Border Agency has recently announced that it will deploy special units at major airports and ports across the UK to help identify adults and children trafficked into the UK before gangs put them to work in the sex trade or exploit them as slaves in forced labour. London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports are among the first to be targeted by the Border Agency anti-trafficking units.

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