What is the essence of child trafficking that exists today just as it did a century ago?

Historian Dr Julia Laite’s book The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey tells a history of trafficking in the 19th and early 20th century through Lydia Harvey, a 17 year old girl trafficked from New Zealand to the UK via Buenos Aries for commercial sexual exploitation. This historical account reminds us trafficking occurs in a specific socioeconomic and cultural context, however what struck me was how similar Lydia Harvey’s own experience was to so many of the young victims of trafficking I’ve worked with, more than 100 years on. What we know is with each attempt to disrupt trafficking, those who exploit children change their tactics; however by reflecting on the fundamental aspects of trafficking which are almost always present are we able to learn about the essence of trafficking, and therefore how we can best respond to it? Below are five key points which are as true today as they were 100 years ago...

1. The methods of control used and the vulnerability of migrant children

As I read the account of how Lydia was coerced into being trafficked, it could have been so many of our young people today in the 21st century. Lydia was from a poor, single-parent household, who left her home when 16 to migrate to Wellington to work as a domestic servant. She was bored of her hometown, she wanted to have a better life and to travel the world. Soon after she moved to the capital she met her traffickers, who offered her travel, bought her nice clothes and promised money and riches. As the book says, no clothing they gave her once she left New Zealand from her traffickers was ever as nice as that first dress she received. This perfectly exemplifies the grooming which occurs to develop that bond with the trafficker and allows them to be controlled.

We see the same of our young people today. There is often a misconception that force and abuse is used from the start when children are trafficked. This is rarely the case, but instead young people and their families are promised whatever they need: care, affection, money, opportunities. It was only once Lydia was trafficked to Argentina, completely alone, isolated and dependent on her traffickers that the abuse and exploitation began.

2. Criminalisation of victims of trafficking

The book describes the legal context in which girls and women who had been trafficked into UK sex industry found themselves in. It was a world where women and girls would be regularly arrested for ‘immoral’ behaviour, soliciting ‘honest gentleman’ and ‘disturbing common decency’. When they were arrested, they would be fined, imprisoned and then left without any support upon release. And what about the traffickers? The prosecution of Lydia’s traffickers was an incredibly rare occurrence (hence why it was in the media and there is enough records for her story to be told).The two men who trafficked Lydia and others were only sentenced to six months in prison.

Unfortunately more than a century later young people are still not being identified as victims of trafficking, but instead treated as criminals. With 2021’s NRM statistics showing 61% of all referrals of suspected child trafficking included criminal exploitation, in addition to prosecution rates for trafficking falling in recent years. And although no data on this is available, it is likely there are far more victims of trafficking in prison in the UK, than those who have been prosecuted as traffickers[1].

3. Ideas of the ‘perfect victim’

Why was all the media focus on Lydia and not the other victims which were named in the prosecution of their traffickers? The reason was simple: Lydia was from New Zealand and not from France like the other victims. There was a stereotype at the time that French women were ‘sexually loose’, prostitutes and not victims of exploitation in any way. But here was Lydia, young, white, English speaking and ‘sexually inexperienced’ prior to being trafficked. As the book says:

“Prostitution and trafficking were stickier and more complex problems. Women who sold sex were arrested over and over again and regularly occupied what, for the sake of the tidy narrative, should have been contradictory positions: Victim and criminal.”[2]

We are in the same position now, where the boundaries between ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ are blurred, distorted by traffickers and not clear cut. People’s misconceptions on trafficking paint the idea of a victim who is ‘innocent’, ‘powerless’ and without agency and responsive to support once ‘rescued’. But we have to understand how trafficking works, how children are used as ‘alpha victims’[3] and coerced into exploiting other children themselves. We have to understand the trauma victims of trafficking face. Young people who have been trafficked have had to learn survival mechanisms which professionals often do not understand: victims of trafficking will often present as aggressive, non-cooperative and certainly not fitting in with this ideal of a ‘victim’. But we must understand these behaviours are not because young people are actually ‘perpetrators’, but instead they are natural responses to trafficking and young people’s trauma they experience.

4. How we get our response to trafficking wrong

Lydia was trafficked amongst a moral panic of trafficking, which at the time had the horrible name of ‘white slavery’. This meant people of colour would not be considered a victim of trafficking and the author links the anti-trafficking movement to concerns on the morality of naïve, young, white girls who were participating more in the workforce and wider society (this conceptual idea of trafficking also overlooked the possibility boys and men could be exploited).

This meant the anti-trafficking response, led by the ‘National Vigilance Association’ who saw themselves as protecting these young women’s ‘morality’ and ‘innocence’ would patrol ports and train stations wearing armbands to tell any victims of trafficking they can approach them to be ‘rescued’. The author highlights even if Lydia knew what those armbands meant, she never would have approached them due to what would happen. Women and girls were placed in rescue homes where the girls were considered ‘wayward’, with the aim for these girls to be conditioned into becoming ‘decent’ and ‘respectable’. The author highlights these homes were virtual prisons they stayed in whilst their trafficker would be prosecuted, and after the prosecution occurred, victims faced compulsory deportation as they were considered ‘undesirable migrants’ by the 1905 Aliens Act. All of this meant that the exploitation at the hands of traffickers continued, as the alternative of imprisonment, judgement and deportation was often considered worse by those who were being exploited.

Once again this has remarkable parallels of child victims of trafficking today. Our young people have face arrest, disbelief, as well as being placed in care where there are not allowed to go outside for months on end (I once had a young person tell me they had more freedom with their trafficker, than they did when they were in care being ‘protected’).

What our young people need is stability, security and certainty. Imagine the position of thousands of unaccompanied children we have here in the UK, who have been placed in asylum hotels on the south coast of the England. They have been aged disputed, disbelieved, often criminalised for driving the boats. Rarely do they have anyone who can explain what is happening in a language they understand, no one has explained what their rights are, or what is going to happen next. Imagine when the young person leaves that hotel and they are approached by someone on the street- he speaks your language, he is friendly, he buys you food- much better food than what is given in the hotel. He says that he has a job for you, so you can earn money to send back to his family, or pay off debts for the journey to the UK. Not only this, but he tells you if you stay in the hotel, they will deport you to Rwanda, however he tells you he can protect you from deportation.

Why would you stay in the hotel? Reports of racism and bullying in these hotels[4] suggest that it is not a welcoming, friendly or caring environment for children. You have been disbelieved, you are made to feel like a criminal, and you’ve heard of other people being threatened to be deported. If we are to prevent young people from being trafficked (or re-trafficked), then we need to provide them with care, security, stability and show them there is an alternative future of hope which is possible as opposed to the abuse and exploitation they have experienced.

5. Once young people are protected, they lead normal, prosperous lives

What happens to Lydia Harvey? After the conviction of her traffickers she returned to New Zealand, where she was reunited with her family and safety. From the return the author finds very few records of her life. We know she married, but beyond that we can only infer that she led a regular, perhaps even rather ordinary, life.

So we learn something to be hopeful for at the end of this book, as the story of Lydia Harvey shows when children are protected and safeguarded from trafficking, they can lead the same lives as any other child- the fact they have survived trafficking does not define them, nor does it dictate their life’s course.

This is also something just as true today as a hundred years ago, however the key difference is the majority of children who are trafficked around the world in the 21st century are refugees fleeing conflict and persecution, so it is not safe to return home. Instead we must provide them with safe routes to migrate and ensure they have secure status in their host country with access to rights and entitlements. Then young survivors of trafficking will have the opportunity to build a happy and prosperous life. This should give us tremendous encouragement as professionals working with unaccompanied, separated and trafficked young people, because if we do our work right, if we can provide the stability and safety, then we can help young people move on from their past and build a better future.

It is possible to prevent vulnerable children from being trafficked and its possible for young people to move on and recover from their exploitation. However, it doesn’t happen automatically and that is why it is essential to understand the essence and fundamentals of trafficking, which are as true today across the world as they were more than 100 years ago.

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[1] Malloch, M., 2017. Criminalising of victims of human trafficking: state responses and punitive practices. In: Malloch, M., Rigby, P., 2017. Human trafficking: the complexities of exploitation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [2] Laite, J., 2021. The disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A true story of sex, crime and the meaning of justice. London: Profile Books. [3]Cockbain, E., Brayley-Morris, H., 2017. Human trafficking and labour exploitation in the casual construction industry: An analysis of three major investigations in the UK involving Irish traveller offending groups. Policing, 12(2), pp.129-149. [4] Townsend, M., 2023. Revealed: child migrants racially abused and threatened with violence at Home Office hotel. London: The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/28/child-migrants-racially-abused-home-office-hotel-brighton-criminals