Tanya was smuggled into the UK in the back of a lorry, crammed into a box hidden in a cargo of tyres. She had been promised a job as a waitress at a casino in Bosnia but, once in the hands of the traffickers, she was bought and sold six times on the journey across Europe.

Terrified, unable to speak English and not sure where she was, she was dropped off with her Albanian trafficker in a forest where they were picked up by a minicab and taken to Birmingham. For the next few months, she was forced to work as a prostitute in a sauna there and then in London. Her captors told her she would be jailed if she went to the authorities and threatened to harm her children in Ukraine. “They said you have a daughter, she will be grown up soon,” remembers Tanya (not her real name) bleakly.

With a bond of several thousands of pounds hanging over her — “I knew they would never let me go, even if I paid it” — she escaped thanks to friends. She hid, working in a charity shop and studying English, too frightened to tell anyone what had happened to her. After nine months, she was persuaded to go to the police to claim asylum. She was referred to the Poppy Project, the Home Office-funded initiative that provides support and housing to women trafficked into prostitution.

Tanya was identified by project workers as a trafficking victim but the Home Office refused to accept her credibility. After an 18-month legal battle, an immigration appeal tribunal granted her asylum. It accepted that Tanya, who was represented by Hammersmith Law Centre, was a victim of trafficking and that she would be at risk of serious harm from her trafficker if she was returned home, as well as being at risk of being trafficked again.

The tortuous process to legitimise her status could be handled very differently in future after the Prime Minister’s recent pledge to sign up to the European convention against human trafficking.

The convention covers a range of measures, focused on the three “P”s — protection of the victim, prosecution of the traffickers and prevention of this modern-day slavery. Implementation would mean that a victim of trafficking would be eligible for medical treatment, counselling and legal representation. They would be given a “recovery and reflection” period of at least 30 days, during which time they could not be deported, allowing them a chance to recuperate and consider testifying against their traffickers.

The human rights barrister Parosha Chandran, of 1 Pump Court chambers, represented Tanya at her appeal. “It is very significant that Tony Blair has finally signed up to the convention, joining 30 other signatories. However, only three countries — Austria, Moldova and Romania — have so far ratified the convention; it needs another seven for it to enter into force.”

She says that the Government held out against signing because it feared that the convention’s protections for victims could prove a “pull” factor in encouraging fraudulent claims. However, its own action plan to combat trafficking, launched by the Home Office last year, was criticised for failing to focus on the long-term protection of victims.

Those points were picked up by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. In its report last October it called on the Government to ratify the convention and provide victims with at least three months’ recovery and reflection time.

Miss Chandran says: “Victim protection is the cornerstone of any policy against trafficking. Victims won’t give evidence unless they feel safe, not only while they are doing so but after doing so. I acted for two sisters who were trafficked into the UK as children. After several years, they escaped and went to the police. They were terrified but they gave evidence at the trial of their trafficker, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison — the second longest sentence ever given to a human trafficker in the UK. But, despite their having risked the retribution of his accomplices, we had to go to court before the Home Office finally agreed to grant them five years’ humanitarian protection.” Eric Metcalf, human rights director with the campaign group Justice, says that pressure has to be kept on the Government to ratify the convention. “Much has been made of the ‘pull’ factor of these sorts of protections. But the convention is very clear that it is open to governments to adopt sensible safeguards to prevent people exploiting it. If there is evidence the person isn’t a trafficking victim, it is perfectly legitimate to withdraw their residence permit.”

For Tanya, now 31, being granted asylum allowed her to feel safe for the first time in years. Articulate and determined, she plans to write her story to help other women to escape their “slavery” to abusive men. “When the Home Office didn’t believe me, it was terrible. I didn’t sleep, I lost weight, I smoked too much. I didn't trust anyone. But I feel safe now. I am not scared to go out or talk to people. I am a survivor.”

TRAFFICKING FIGURES

Most statistics are based on assumptions, but the Government estimates that roughly 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution were in the UK at any one time during 2003 — some people believe the number is consierably higher. However, the suggestion that the number of women being trafficked for prostitution into the UK is on the increase seems to be corroborated by the fact that whereas 10 years ago 85 per cent of women in brothels were UK citizens, now 85 per cent are from outside UK.

Information taken from the Joint Committee report 2005-06

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