Women’s Institute needs to corroborate reports of sex trafficking

Police have said that community representatives need to corroborate reports of sex trafficking to aid intelligence following the women’s minister’s call for Women’s Institute (WI) members to report suspicious advertisements.

Harriet Harman, minister for Women and Equality, this week called on members of the WI to study local newspaper advertisements that may point to illegitimate businesses that prey on women who may have been trafficked and forced into prostitution.

Speaking at the National Federation of Women`s Institutes (NFWI) Women`s Conference on Tuesday, Ms Harman said the UK is a major destination for trafficked women, and victims can be found in every part of the UK.

“Adverts in local papers are one of the most common methods of making contact with women for sexual purposes,” she said. “Look at the adverts in your local newspaper. They advertise women for sale for sex. Many are young women from Eastern Europe, from Africa or south east Asia, tricked and trafficked into this country and forced into prostitution.”

Research published earlier this year showed that nearly half the adverts for women in local papers referred to them as being from abroad. The report Women Not for Sale showed how ‘small ads’ in newspapers can fuel demand for women trafficked for sexual exploitation.

When Operation Pentameter – the first proactive policing operation involving all 55 UK forces – was launched in 2006 to rescue victims trafficked for sexual exploitation, local newspaper adverts were analysed in order to generate an intelligence picture.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Bird, head of Thames Valley Police’s (TVP) force intelligence bureau, said the move represents a step in the right direction but underlined the need to corroborate reports of suspicious adverts.

“There are so many advertisements in local newspapers and as Pentameter has shown, they can act as the starting point when investigating incidents of human trafficking,” he told Police Professional.

When TVP’s Pentameter began analysing adverts highlighting those premises where there were likely to be foreign workers, the scale of the off-street sex trade soon became clear.

“We quickly identified over 100 premises and had to place a limit on the number to look at, as we were limited in time and manpower,” said DCI Bird.

“However, something additional to reports of suspicious adverts must be generated if they are to be of any significant value to investigations.

“The WI reporting what it believes to be suspicious advertisements will be a useful resource if what it reports can be corroborated with other forms of intelligence, especially community information, such as residents’ knowledge about what is happening in their neighbourhood.”

DCI Bird said suspicious incidents such as premises reportedly being used as brothels, when corroborated with other forms of intelligence, would prove useful, especially as some adverts are published in newspapers outside of a force’s region where the criminal enterprise takes place.

Jemma Shaw, operations analyst for TVP said ‘small ads’ relating to illegitimate businesses often have ‘trigger’ words, which have an underlying meaning.

“During early Pentameter work we discovered that ‘French’ and ‘Italian’ usually inferred the female was from Albania, for example.

Adverts which raised concern were those with foreign workers and the smaller sized ads with only a mobile phone number.

Fay Mansell, NFWI chair, said: “But local action is vital too, as a lot of women are trafficked due to demand generated by adverts for sexual services. We are asking members to see if their local papers have followed guidelines to reduce such adverts.”