More victims of human trafficking end up in prison than the criminals who buy and sell them, a Dundee-based MSP has claimed.
During a fringe event at the Labour Party Conference in Inverness, North East Scotland representative Jenny Marra announced she is to launch a member’s bill at the Scottish Parliament to tighten up the law.
It came as one of Police Scotland’s most senior officers compared public perception of the offence to how domestic abuse and rape was seen in previous decades.
Assistant Chief Constable for serious crime and public protection, Malcolm Graham, said many people did not recognise the issue was prevalent in society but added intelligence suggests victims are being subjected to forced labour and servitude as well as sex trafficking.
He said: “When I look back at some of the issues we have dealt with before, like domestic abuse and rape, we had to start off from a fairly low base. The issues existed but there were perceptions and assumptions. This is possible in Scotland and we will address the issues in an open and transparent way.”
At present, human trafficking falls between two laws but Ms Marra wants it to be made an aggravation in itself.
She is calling for Scotland to adopt the Palermo Protocol, which defines trafficking as “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons”, by means including “threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits”.
Three people from Slovakia, who smuggled a couple from their own country into Scotland in a bid to force the woman into a sham marriage, were jailed for a total of nine years at Dundee Sheriff Court recently.
Helena Kulova, 47, Renata Kulova, 20 and Ivan Balog, 27 were convicted of human trafficking after a trial. Police had swooped to rescue the woman from a flat in Perth after she phoned her mother for help.
But that case accounts for three of the total of five convictions to have ever been made against human traffickers in Scotland, Ms Marra claimed.
She said: “We think we have more victims of human trafficking in our jails tonight in Scotland than we have people who are responsible.
“I am calling for the Scottish Government to embed the Palermo Protocol into Scots law and to embed the EU directive so we can’t criminalise victims of human trafficking.”
The Scottish Government has taken steps to try to tackle people smuggling, including proposing a new human trafficking “aggravation” to be attached to other criminal charges, such as assault or drugs, which would lead to stronger sentences.