Trafficked child vows to continue fight for justice -

As four child trafficking victims are awarded damages after police failed to investigate their complaints, one claimant tells Channel 4 News she wants to hunt down traffickers and free other victims.
The African children were trafficked into Britain

Four young women from Nigeria have been awarded damages totalling £20,000 after a High Court judge ruled that the police failed to properly investigate their complaints that they were being subjected to slavery here in the UK.

The women, who were all aged 15 or less when they were illegally trafficked to the UK from Nigeria, were each awarded £5,000 after a High Court judge concluded that the Metropolitan Police had breached their human rights by failing to investigate their allegations.

The traffickers, who brought the women to England between 1997 and 2002 told their parents that the move would help them to complete their studies.

But they ended up looking after the children of African families living in the UK. Some of them were forbidden to talk to anyone and prevented from leaving the house. Several were spied on by their guardians and physically abused.

Each tried unsuccessfully to seek help from social services and police from 2004 onwards, including the specialist child trafficking unit Operation Paladin. In 2007 they received help from the charity Africans Unite Against Child Abuse (Afruca) which led to their claim against the police.

The women, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, complained that the Metropolitan Police had infringed their rights under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by failing to investigate over a "significant" period of time.

www.channel4.com/news/trafficked-child-vows-to-continue-fight-for-justice