Asian `child slaves’ at British cannabis farms: Report
UK: Criminal gangs are trafficking hundreds of children into
Britain and forcing them to work in cannabis factories, with at least
one child per week being found by police, a report said Sunday.
Campaign group End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the
Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) said there had been
a five-fold increase in the practice in the last year alone.
Children as young as 13, many from Vietnam, were being brought to
Britain to work as “slaves” for organised criminals to push production
of the drug here to record levels.
They are forced to tend cannabis plants grown in suburban houses and
often forced to sleep in cupboards, with little chance of escape for
fear of being caught.
“There is clear evidence that there are young people who are
trafficked, bought and sold, for the purpose of forced labour in
cannabis production in the UK,” ECPAT’s director Christine Beddoe told
the Independent on Sunday.
“In the past 12 months there has been a 500 per cent increase in the
number of cases being reported to us.
We now get told about one young person every week being removed from
a cannabis factory.
“But nobody knows the true scale of the problem.”
Police believe the problem has emerged after organised crime gangs,
many of them Vietnamese, moved to dominate the British cannabis market
after the narcotic was downgraded from a Class B to Class C drug in
2004.
Declassification increased the potential rewards of growing and
selling cannabis but decreased the risk of punishment.
One police officer was quoted as saying cannabis was the “cash
machine of organised crime.”
The newspaper said one three-bedroom house converted into a cannabis
factory can yield up to 300,000 pounds (430,000 euros, 606,000 dollars)
a year.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated he is in favour of
reversing the downgrade.
Peter Stanley, from the campaign group Stop the Traffic, was quoted
as saying criminals were effectively picking the children “to order.”
“There is evidence that particular south-east Asian villages are
targeted for specific trades, with Vietnam now known to specialise in
boys for cannabis factories,” he said.
The campaigners said trafficked children found by police on raids at
cannabis factories need better protection, as many have disappeared
without trace soon after being taken into the case of social services.
They also said there was evidence many of those prosecuted in
connection with such cannabis farms were in fact originally trafficked
as children.
London, Sunday, AFP |