Highlighting injustice
Even those with a very low opinion of Parliament and its inhabitants might be a little surprised to see a brothel and a cannabis factory in the hallowed corridors of the Palace of Westminster next month.
But calm down dears - they're only replicas, put there by the on the Trafficking of Women and Children, to highlight the working conditions of the victims of people traffickers, the modern day slave trade.
The All Party Group is one of the most persistent and effective in Parliament, boasting such luminaries as former International Development Secretary , the former Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Office Minister and , the former president of the Family Division of the High Court.
On Monday 22 February, they will open their exhibition in the anteroom leading to the committee corridor, with the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Secretary Alan Johnson and William Hague doing the honours.
The group chairman, the veteran Tory , says trafficking is everywhere. He'd recently had a case of a trafficked woman forced into prostitution in his rural Devon constituency. "I didn't know we had a brothel in Paignton," he said. "But she escaped...."
Naive young girls from eastern European backwaters are duped into coming to Britain, expecting a good job or a modelling career, and are then forced into prostitution with the threat of horrific violence, or of reprisals against their families, at home. Others become domestic slaves, sometimes even working for diplomats.
Some become thieves - modern Fagin's children - picking pockets or scamming cash machines. And there are an increasing number of cases, where trafficked child labourers tend cannabis factories, concealed in ordinary houses. All live in fear, in miserable conditions.
Mr Steen obtained last Wednesday to maintain pressure on the government. In general, he says, the government has done a good job addressing the issue of human trafficking, although he detects a pre-election flagging of official energies. He wants a new watchdog body, special advocates for trafficked children, like the guardian ad litem service which represents children who have to go before the courts, and a host of other improvements to the system.
And even though he's leaving Parliament at the next election, he is certain the APG will keep up the pressure.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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