Justice Committee’s Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill
Introduction
NICRE is a black led membership based organization. It is currently had 18 ethnic minority and migrant organizations as well as individuals’ members. NICRE was set up to continue the policy work of the previous NICEM (NI Council for Ethnic Minority) which was under voluntary administration in November 2016.
In 2018 we made a joint submission with BME Women Network and Migrant Centre NI to Gillen Review on Serious Sexual Offences. We highlighted this important independent and comprehensive review processes in order to identify the issues of under-reporting, poor conviction rates, attrition rates and other barriers face by the black and minority ethnic women and children (BME women and children), in particular Muslim women and children.
The previous Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities (NICEM) had conducted two pieces of evidence base research on “The Protection and Rights of Black and Minority Ethnic Women Experiencing Domestic Violence in Northern Ireland” and “The Experiences of Ethnic Minority Women in Northern Ireland” in June 2013 as part of the submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women in June 2013. The first report was conducted by Professor Monica McWilliams and Priyamvada Yarnell and the second report was conducted by the former Deputy Director of the Runnymede Trust, the race think-tank, in UK.
We must address the Bill in the context of international human rights standards such as International Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, International Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, as well as UN experts on trafficking in persons, contemporary forms of slavery and sale and sexual exploitation of children, particularly Inter-agency Coordination Against Trafficking.
We welcome the Bill improves the current legal provisions in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland, especially the trafficking victims provision, including the Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Action Plan on annual basis. It creates new sexual offences of voyeurism and sexual grooming.
NICRE Submission to Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill
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