Child trafficking: Roundtable meeting in London

ECPAT UK and World Vision UK have joined together to launch a new campaign in 2007 that will focus efforts around three key actions to protect child victims of trafficking. The campaign will call on the British Government to:

• Withdraw its Reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on immigration and nationality. The UK Government has insisted that it will not remove its Reservation on the UNCRC in order to maintain strict and effective immigration control. The UK's Reservation states that the UK will not be bound by the Convention in matters concerning children under immigration control. This directly affects the provision of care and protection measures afforded to child victims of trafficking.
• Ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Actions Against Trafficking in Human Beings
• Appoint an independent Child Trafficking Rapporteur for the UK. The Dutch model of an Independent Trafficking Rapporteur has been evaluated as a good practice model to ensure annual monitoring of trends and accountability of government.

ECPAT UK and World Vision UK hope that other organisations will join with them to support this campaign. They are holding a Roundtable meeting in Westminster on 2nd February 2007, between 10-12am, and would like to invite interested individuals and organisations to join them in the discussion. Please reply to: Chris Beddoe, Director
ECPAT UK, on: [email protected].