Children’s views ‘key to tackling slavery’

Social workers must start engaging children who have been
trafficked into the UK if they want to help solve the problem of
slavery, according to a legal expert.

Yaw Dua-Agyemang, a law lecturer at Lambeth College, London, said
many children who had fallen victim to traffickers said their views
were not taken seriously by professionals.

He said: “When you ask the children who have been trafficked about
their problems they say the social workers and people in authority
don’t listen to them, they listen to the traffickers themselves.

“The children’s views are not taken into consideration. They listen
to the traffickers because they can speak posh English, and the
children can hardly speak English.”

The large caseloads of social workers and deceptive nature of
traffickers mean that professionals are too ready to believe
traffickers’ versions of events, he said.

Dua-Agyemang also suggested that the United Nations should set up a
specialised task force to tackle child slavery.