Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 6:00 pm on 16 October 2007.
Jan Berry: That is a huge subject. For trafficked women—and children, for that matter—legislation is not the only solution. It is about what provisions can be made for such people. From the policing point of view, it raises the awareness of officers and of how they would know that they were dealing with trafficked women. It is not something that they would come across every day, although they do so increasingly often. Many police officers will look at a woman who appears to be enjoying herself and think that she is doing exactly what she wants to do. It is only when you look into the circumstances of that particular woman that you find an underlying tragic story. Legislation can do some things, but the first thing that you must do is to have an awareness programme and an acknowledgment that that is going on. Then you have to provide solutions for where you are going to house people and what support services you will provide. You do not go into that without having some understanding of the resource implications required by the outcomes.