Crime Reduction Toolkits

Trafficking of People

Entry & exit point detection

Multi-agency agreed profiles can be useful when available. Immigration and police officers can benefit from access to appropriate profiles of:

• The modus operandi of the traffickers;
   

• Traffickers and their accomplices;
   

• Victims and potential victims.

Any local intelligence should be recorded, shared with other agencies where appropriate and communicated to the national agencies.

It is important to be aware that many potential victims may not realise that they are at risk of exploitation when they enter the country – having only been subjected to deception rather than any coercion at this stage. However, the fact that they may be travelling with a known trafficker can mean that they may be able to provide useful intelligence and that it may be appropriate to warn them of their situation.

There should be close monitoring of unaccompanied children who are picked up by people already suspected of trafficking, or who may fit the multi-agency developed profiles. Children and young people arriving in the UK with a companion, or relative, who are deemed suspicious by immigration officials, should be interviewed separately to ascertain the real situation. There should be checks made against national and any local criminal intelligence databases. Accredited legal advisors should be appointed to represent the child at an appropriate stage. 

There may be opportunities for police to intercept traffickers and victims exiting the country as well as on entry. The profiles and databases for identifying traffickers and victims are equally applicable.

 

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