ECPAT UK & The Body Shop UK – Press release
ECPAT UK joins forces with The Body Shop UK in a new campaign to stop trafficking of children – August 2009
ECPAT UK in partnership with The Body Shop are launching a three-year campaign to stop trafficking of children and young people by raising awareness of the issue and empowering people to make a difference. The Body Shop UK has produced special campaign hand cream called ‘Soft Hands, Kind Heart’.
The hand cream will be on sale from 13th August, in-store and online at www.thebodyshop.co.uk, (RRP: £5), and for each sale £3.15 is donated directly to ECPAT UK to help fund campaigns and prevention projects against child trafficking in the UK.
Research commissioned by The Body Shop UK to uncover the extent to which Britons are aware of the issue of child trafficking found that over a third of the public are completely unaware of the extent of trafficking in the UK. The findings, collated from 1255 respondents, suggest that a large proportion of the UK population believe that child trafficking does not happen in their local area. One in 10 Britons do not believe it is happening in this country and a frightening 34% believe that child victims of trafficking end up in foreign countries, not in Great Britain.
Christine Beddoe, Director of ECPAT UK said, “Child trafficking is not easy to spot and not easy to talk about. The fact that the majority of all global trafficking is for sexual exploitation has created a taboo. If we are all aware, then we can all help stop children falling through the cracks in society. We can make a real difference and prevent child trafficking.”
The campaign is part of a global partnership between ECPAT and The Body Shop. A global report launched in Bangkok compiles up-to-date information about the trafficking of children and young people for sexual exploitation, a crime which occurs all over in the world. The campaign to stop the trafficking of children requires the skills and knowledge of many groups of people. ECPAT UK has been campaigning against the sexual exploitation of children for over 15 years and has been responsible for ground breaking research and a number of successful campaigns to bring about new laws and policies to protect children who have been trafficked into the UK.
Jan Buckingham, Global Values Director at The Body Shop UK commented: “The objectives of this campaign are not only to raise awareness of the issue and raise funds to support ECPAT campaigns and prevention projects against child trafficking, but to influence government to ensure stricter anti-trafficking policies and legislation, and to dedicate more resources to this cause. Government has to do more to guarantee children and young people their right to protection from trafficking. There is hope, and real and practical solutions exist.”
Christine Beddoe said: “The key to protecting child victims of trafficking is guaranteeing safe accommodation for them. At the end of this three-year campaign, we want safe accommodation, including specialist foster care, to be available for all child victims of trafficking.”
For more information, please see www.ecpat.org.uk
