International Human Rights Clinic submits evidence to U.K. Parliament on bill's treatment of trafficking victims
The written evidence builds on the clinic’s earlier work supporting a new U.N. report on human trafficking and terrorism that was presented to the U.N. General Assembly in October.
The International Human Rights Clinic submitted written evidence to the British Parliament in October on a new bill that purports to remove trafficking status for those coerced by terrorist groups. The clinic worked in collaboration with civil society in the United Kingdom working on the issue.
The clinic's submission assesses a section of the Nationality and Borders Bill against international anti-trafficking and human rights law that binds the U.K., focusing on "how the bill wrongly disqualifies trafficking victims—particularly those linked to terrorism—from identification and various forms of protection, assistance, and support; undermines the rights of child trafficking victims; and fails to prevent, investigate, and punish traffickers from proscribed groups." It concludes that Part 4 falls short of the U.K.'s international law obligations in several respects.
The written evidence builds on the clinic’s earlier work supporting a new U.N. report on human trafficking and terrorism that was presented to the U.N. General Assembly in October. The report references the clinic and work by Professors Jayne Huckerby and Aya Fujimura-Fanselow in support of the report. As part of this work, Huckerby provided testimony over the summer to an all-party parliamentary group in Britain that is investigating trafficking to ISIS.
“Governments around the world are grappling with how to treat those trafficked to groups like ISIS who then go on to engage in forced criminality,” said Huckerby, the clinic’s director. “Working with the U.N. and with civil society, the clinic is contributing to key questions around how human rights law applies in these cases.”