Towards the fag-end of December last year, a passenger flight, carrying 276 Indian passengers was grounded for four days in a non-descript place in France, Vatry airport, located 150 kilometers east of Paris, pending investigation into a large human trafficking. The flight, carried out by Romanian charter company Legend Airlines, had departed from Dubai and landed at the small Vatry airport on Thursday for a technical stopover when police intervened, the Marne prefecture said in a statement. Bound for Nicaragua, the flight arrived in France with 303 Indian passengers onboard. Passengers were eventually transferred into the main hall of the small Vatry airport, where cots were set up for them to stay overnight, and then the rigorous trial began.
The incident followed the release of Dunki, a Hindi-language potboiler based on the illegal immigration technique called "donkey flight". Donkey flight, more popularly called "dunki" in Punjabi, is a notorious illegal immigration technique used for unauthorized entry into countries like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Conmen exploit migrants by facilitating illegal border crossings, using methods such as containers and ships. Agents apprehend migrants at borders, leading to subsequent deportation. The Migration Policy Institute notes that migrants, mainly unskilled laborers, employ "Donkey Flight" to enter the United Kingdom through other European Union countries. Migrants pay travel agents for visas to Schengen zone countries, allowing unrestricted travel among most European Union member states. Unscrupulous agents provide forged documents, including residency permits and driving licenses, for those willing to pay. Less affluent migrants are often smuggled into the USA through various means, emphasizing the clandestine and perilous nature of the "Donkey Flight" scam.
A travel agent from Punjab revealed the alarming details of this large scale human trafficking. He reportedly said that nearly 600 Indians are awaiting similar flights in Dubai and after the modus operandi was exposed, the agents were prompted to advise these individuals to make a return to their homeland. The agent reportedly said, "Now that the modus operandi has been exposed, agents have asked them to return to India. According to my information, 500 to 600 immigrants are in Dubai." The agent, while speaking to the Indian Express newspaper, disclosed that the flight that was grounded was the third such flight to Nicaragua in 2023 alone.
Passengers had paid "four million to 12.5 million rupees" ($48,000-150,000) to agents to help them reach the southern border of the United States from South America, Gujarat state police superintendent Sanjay Kharat told AFP. "We want to know how these people came in contact with the agents, or whether the agents contacted them, and what their plan was after reaching Nicaragua," he said.
Every year, around 30,000 to 40,000 Pakistanis try to enter Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and Türkiye unlawfully. Human smugglers allure people by showing them fantasies and videos of previous immigrants they carried as how luxuriously they are living in foreign countries. Desiring people pay more than Rs. 2 million to the smuggling agents for traveling without a visa from the route of Balochistan. Most of them belong to poor regions of Punjab state of Pakistan.
Tragically, many Pakistanis have died on these dangerous travels, either as a result of a lack of food and shelter or continuously running for 30 hours in hard and mountainous areas. While traveling from Daewoo those who give less money are forced to sit in the toolbox of the bus to hide from the border police. With 2D cars, 14 to 19 people are smuggled from Balochistan to the Iran border. Smuggled immigrants are at risk of being exploited and may become victims of groups that traffic people for forced labor, sex slavery, and other types of inhumane activities. Last year, in an Italy boat incident 350 Pakistanis were travelling through this illegal corridor, a majority of them sank and died.
More than 27 million people are trafficked worldwide at any given time, according to the United States Department of State. While boys and men are victims as well, most individuals identified as trafficked for both labor and commercial sex are women and girls. The most common form of human trafficking detected by national authorities is trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.Over fifty percent of identified girl victims are aged between 15 and 17, whereas about forty percent of trafficked boys are under 12 years of age.Considering the size of the UK, it seems to have an astonishing share of this human traffic. In recent years, the majority of human trafficking victims detected in Europe have come from the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, în particular România, Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova.
Startlingly hundreds of vulnerable women and children are being trafficked to the UK to shoplift for Eastern European crime groups, the BBC has learned. One company in Scotland told BBC File on 4 it had identified a gang with 154 shoplifters stealing high-value items in bulk to sell or ship abroad. Members have been arrested in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Darlington. Retailers Against Crime (RAC) said it was tracking 56 shoplifting groups that are funding organised crime.
The criminal activities have been linked to drugs, firearms and human trafficking. The British Retail Consortium estimates that shoplifting cost retailers £953m last year, with a 25% rise in reported incidents. Organised crime groups are blamed for many of the largest losses. Another 100-strong gang operates in London with members that are almost exclusively female, all trafficked from Eastern Europe.
There are stories in abundance of the brides trapped as UK slaves rescued by charity organisations. Some of these brides have no documents, no passports, no identity and live in fear of being deported. Culture, honour and language barriers are used to control and abuse black and Asian women.
In 2022, 7,936 referrals for potential victims of exploitation in the UK were made, a 10.3% increase from the previous year, a largest contributor to this human tragedy is South Asia and Africa. Referrals for modern slavery and human trafficking have increased. Modern slavery exists in many forms in the UK, including trafficking into criminal activities like cannabis farming, sexual exploitation, domestic slavery or forced labour on farms, in construction, shops, bars, nail bars, car washes or manufacturing. Modern slavery is an international crime that affects an estimated 29.8 million slaves around the world, with an estimated 13,000 people held in slavery in the UK today.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”) consolidated previous legislation criminalising offences of slavery and trafficking for all forms of exploitation. It came into force on 31 July 2015 and does not apply to offences committed before then. Today, an estimated 3.3 million children are trapped in forced labour, a type of modern slavery, across the globe – including in the UK. More than half of children in forced labour are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation.
According to the BBC, women are brought to England as brides and used as domestic slaves. At least 10 children are trafficked every week in the UK. Between April 2021 and March 2022, Scottish authorities prosecuted 23 suspected traffickers, including 10 for sex trafficking and 13 for unspecified forms of trafficking. The International Labour Organisation estimated that 50 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021. In 2022 7019 children were identified as trafficked in England and Wales, according to the data released by National Referral Mechanism Statistics, 2022. The vast majority of children referred into the NRM in 2020/21 were criminally exploited, accounting for 3,110 in total8 or 66.9%. Other exploitation types recorded are sexual exploitation (418), labour exploitation (362), domestic servitude (49) and organ harvesting (2).
Multiple findings raise urgent concerns about modern slavery in Britain and come amid a worsening social care staffing crisis, with vacancy rates in England reaching 10%, according to the charity Skills for Care. In February, the government added care workers to the shortage occupation list, relaxing the requirements for them to come to Britain provided they are sponsored by an employer. With more than 105,000 vacancies, the Home Office introduced a visa scheme enabling care sector staff from overseas to come to the UK.
Contracts that tie workers to their jobs can make it even harder for some to leave their roles. The repayment clauses are commonly used in the private care sector, as well as by some NHS trusts, and stipulate that workers will pay a fee if they leave before their agreed contract terms ends – usually two or three years.
On arrival they realised they were being made to do care work instead, being deployed to private households across the south-east. They spent months being moved around, earning below minimum wage with little time off, and were allegedly told by their employers: “If you don’t work we’ll make you homeless tomorrow and report you to the Home Office.” The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, sponsored by the Home Office, has become increasingly concerned about care sector abuses in recent months, with raids resulting in arrests of suspects for modern slavery-related offences.
Workers from countries including India, the Philippines, Ghana and Zimbabwe – many of whom arrived via a new visa scheme for care workers launched in February 2022 – report being charged between 8,000 and £30,000 in illegal fees. These agencies mushroomed in the Indian states such as Gujrat and Punjab. The recruiters appear to target workers in lower-income countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, enticing candidates with promises of good jobs or a “dream life” in the UK via social media and word of mouth. The fees are likely to be illegal and fit the International Labour Organization’s definition of prohibited fees, which include “any costs incurred in the recruitment process in order for workers to secure employment or placement, regardless of the manner, timing or location of their imposition or collection”. Care workers have become trapped in debt bondage – a form of modern slavery – as a result of being made to pay the fees. Suspected victims described how agents had deducted money from their salaries and withheld their passport or residence permit until they repaid the debt.
In the United Kingdom, where Indian grocers and corner shops abound, many aspiring youth could simply disappear through the cracks of the immigration system, untraced for years. Till they would be absorbed as refugees or legalised workers in the system. Many also married citizens from their own community, quickly turning legit, before driving cabs, pumping gas, becoming janitors, or doing other menial jobs.
The most common types of human trafficking are: sex trafficking: working as prostitutes, in pornography, phone sex lines, internet chat rooms, escort agencies. forced labour: working for low pay, or no pay, in poor conditions with threats of punishment.
Appearing to be under the control and influence of others, the scale of human trafficking is appalling. Living in cramped, dirty, overcrowded accommodation. They have no access or control of their passport or identity documents. Appearing scared, avoiding eye contact, and being untrusting.
The National Crime Agency believes the number of victims is in the tens of thousands within the UK. South Asian, Chinese, Nigerian and Vietnamese individuals are the most commonly reported nationalised for potential victims of human trafficking.
The efficacy of SOCA is questioned now, which has responsibility for the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Vulnerable Persons Team, which provides advice and guidance to police forces in investigating cases of trafficking, as well as support and evidential interviewing of vulnerable victims of trafficking. The UK policing on the ground looks for multiple warning signs of human trafficking to spot the victims or those flouting the laws – usually these individuals appear malnourished, show signs of physical injuries and abuse, avoid eye contact or any form of social interaction with social actors from authority figures/law enforcement agencies. They often found to be adhering to scripted or rehearsed responses in social interaction. Lacking official identification documents.
Someone found guilty of human trafficking is liable on summary conviction to 12 months' imprisonment and / or unlimited fine, seems to not be an effective deterrent for offenders. On conviction on indictment, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment, which is often commuted to a lesser harsh punishment. The UK seems to have fallen much behind Taiwan, the affluent country that is ranked as one of the best countries in the latest U.S. Department's report for its efforts against human trafficking.
The Philippines is among the 30 countries ranked Tier 1 in 2023 for meeting minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking set by the United States' Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as amended (TVPA). Other Tier 1 countries include the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore.
Hundreds of trafficking victims in the UK have gone missing after being referred to the government’s scheme to protect them. Some years back about 200 child asylum seekers had gone missing from hotels where they had been in the care of the Home Office and its contractors.The majority of the children who went missing were Albanian boys, and the majority of missing adults were Vietnamese men.
Kathy Betteridge, the director of anti-trafficking and modern slavery for the Salvation Army, which has a contract with the Home Office to look after victims of trafficking, disclosed to the UK newspaper Guardian: “Criminal gangs use a range of techniques to trap people into modern slavery, which include violence and threats to the victim’s family. Of course our support workers explain the reality of how safe survivors are in our support service but we can’t guarantee their families’ safety, and for some people the fear is too strong.
“Sadly, most of the people who abscond are Vietnamese nationals and this seems to be linked to the extreme levels of psychological abuse that they are subjected to by their traffickers. When they arrive at our services they are especially wary of the authorities and worried about threats to their families.”
Over the years, human traffickers used many UK universities as cover, owing to UK universities lack of diligence on these matters. Some of these universities have been warned to be on high alert for human trafficking after suspected victims brought to Britain on student visas vanished from their courses and were found working in exploitative conditions hundreds of miles away. Some of the reported cases included Indian students at Greenwich, Chester and Teesside universities stopped attending lectures shortly after arriving in the UK, according to a report by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) seen by the Observer. They were later found in the care sector in Wales, where they were living in squalid conditions with up to 12 people to a three-bed flat, and were working “up to 80 hours a week, sometimes double-shifting”, for “way below” minimum wage.
It comes after an Observer investigation uncovered widespread labour exploitation in care homes across Britain, with workers from India, the Philippines and countries in Africa found to have been charged up to £18,000 in illegal recruitment fees, and in some cases forced to work in conditions akin to debt bondage to repay money owed, with their wages intercepted and passports withheld. In those cases, many of the suspected victims had come to Britain on legitimate skilled worker visas brought in by the Home Office to help plug shortages in the care sector. The new evidence sheds light on other routes being exploited by traffickers and rogue agents in response to increased demand for cheap workers amid a worsening UK labour shortage.
The University of Nottingham Rights Lab, the world’s largest group of modern slavery researchers, has also described international student recruitment as an area of high risk at British universities. They warned in a recent report on campuses that student visas could be used to facilitate human trafficking. Despite the increased risks, it said there was limited recognition of vulnerable students, with only 7.7% of universities it examined providing specific training to staff in pastoral roles. It has drawn up a blueprint to help universities tackle modern slavery, with recommendations including improved staff training and dedicated working groups.
Human trafficking is a global problem that affects millions of people every year. It needs not always be exploitation of human beings for the purposes of forced labour, sexual slavery, or other forms of abuse. It could also be voluntary and infatuated emigration to “greener pastures.” But those without papers and proper documentation will end up working for less than the market rate and living in extremely vulnerable and pitiable conditions. It requires courage and self-respect to say no to this.
By Sarat C. Das
(The content of this article reflects the views of writers and contributors, not necessarily those of the publisher and editor. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only)
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