Teenagers Forced into UK Slavery

Children are being trafficked into Britain to clean houses and do chores without pay. The victims are mostly West African girls, lured with the promise of an education, only to find themselves forced to do heavy chores for wealthy families.

Ministers will now act to close a loophole identified by the UN children's charity UNICEF which is preparing a study of child trafficking which will be published towards the end of 2003. The report warns that while the Government is now making smuggling children into Britain for prostitution an offence punishable by 14 years in jail, that will not stop gangs trading in children for non-sexual forced labour, from illegal work in sweat-shops to domestic service.

It is thought that a significant percentage of up to 10,000 largely West African children, thought to enter the UK for private fostering, are destined for an underground world of domestic service. Child servants are typically brought in through immigration on false papers with the families who will employ them and passed off as relatives. Their parents may be told by the gangs who recruit them that they are going overseas for an education.