tamar.
INTERNATIONAL sex trafficking.
Bedfordshire has seen a significant increase in reported trafficking crimes in recent years, the majority of which, are sex trafficking according to the Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Lead from Bedfordshire Police. With the lowest cost Eastern European flights operating in and out of Luton airport, the Border Force there recognise that it is these which present the highest risk for sex trafficking. There is currently no dedicated organisation to support women who are sex trafficked, but we are doing what we can within our scope of activity.
helping to reduce trauma.
“I’m here to provide welfare support in a holistic manner, encompassing the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the trafficked woman.”
The experience of being caught up in a sex trafficking warrant, is traumatic and frightening, particularly when your English is poor, you’ve been subjected to exploitative and abusive behaviour and you are far from home.
In the last couple of years Azalea have been part of the local task force for modern day slavery warrants and supported the Police and Borderforce with training, planning, execution and de-briefing of an increasing number of warrants on addresses suspected of housing women who are being internationally sex trafficked.
Our role is to focus on bringing care and support to the women, taking them to a separate temporary space set up to be welcoming and homely rather than institutional. Prior to our involvement, the women would have been taken to the police station along with the traffickers. We offer the women food, fresh clothes, toiletries and creative art activities, giving them time to begin to process what is happening. Our multi-lingual specialist volunteers are able to give reassurance and improved communications which is so important during this time.
As a consequence the women suffer less trauma in the immediate aftermath of a warrant, and are quicker to trust services trying to help them.
TAMAR PROJECT.
The hope with our Tamar Project is that we will be able to broaden our services and offer ongoing support to survivors of international sex trafficking. In addition to simply providing care in the immediate aftermath of warrants we want to provide long term support giving specialist help with complex needs and advocacy for those who have been sex trafficked working alongside the National Referral Mechansim (NRM) process.
We are grateful to the Lloyd’s Bank Foundation for their funding of the Tamar Project research, Bridging the Gaps.
As the Bridging the Gaps report was launched, Emma Turner, our Deputy CEO gave a useful and sobering presentation relating to Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. Alongside definitions of modern slavery, human trafficking and sex trafficking, the presentation provides statistics relating to sex trafficking, explores vulnerability factors for it and details how traffickers work and why it is so prevalent.
You can also watch a video presentation of the findings in Bridging the Gap on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p1iS-YXxWY.