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 Woman Convicted for Baby Trafficking On 12 April 2008, a Nigerian woman, Peace Sandberg, was found guilty of illegally bringing a baby into Britain in a case that police believe is one of a growing number of examples of "child trafficking" for benefit fraud. Sandberg, 40, a housing official in London, flew to Nigeria in November 2006 and returned three weeks later with a baby boy. It is believed that Sandberg bought the baby - at the time just a few months old - from a hospital and smuggled it into Britain to qualify for priority housing. Police believe she sent between £150 and £200 to Nigeria in advance payment for the baby. Social services have been unable to trace the biological family of the infant who has been taken into care. Paul Lewis of the Guardian found that senior detectives fear that "thousands" of children are being smuggled into Britain for benefit fraud, and that trafficking legislation is not working. Police complain that the Crown Prosecution Service is "not bold enough" in pursuit of child trafficking cases. Instead of prosecutions under new legislation, cases like SandbergÕs are being brought under the lesser crime of "facilitation" of illegal entry into the Britain. The jury in Sandberg's trial was not told she was a suspected child trafficker. But under cross-examination, Sandberg, who denied illegal facilitation, told the court: "They [police] just came and arrested me and abducted the child and told me I had done it for benefit fraud. I asked them: 'What's your definition of trafficking?' " Sandberg told the jury she had "adopted" the baby, which was born to a cousin in Nigeria who had recently died, to offer the baby a better life. The advance payment was to look after the child. On her return to Britain in December 2007, she attended Ealing borough council's homeless unit with the baby, claiming it to be her own. After yesterday's verdict, Judge Sam Katkhuda remanded Sandberg in custody and told her to expect a jail sentence. Sandberg's conviction is the ninth for the Metropolitan Police's child trafficking unit, Operation Paladin, since it was set-up in 2005, but all those have been prosecutions for immigration offences rather than child trafficking crimes, which carry higher sentences. Other than cases of people smuggling for "sexual exploitation", there has not been a conviction under the legislation introduced in 2004. Christine Beddoe, director of ECPAT UK, said the failure to prosecute meant the plight of victims went unrecognised." The legislation is inadequate. The criminals are one step ahead." Source: Paul Lewis, Woman smuggled baby into UK 'to qualify for housing priority', The Guardian, 12.04.08. Media Contact: Notes to Editors ECPAT UK is a coalition of childrenÕs charities including Anti-Slavery International, Jubilee Campaign, NSPCC, Save the Children, World Vision UK, The Body Shop Foundation, The ChildrenÕs Society and UNICEF UK. ECPAT UK's 2007 report, Missing Out, found evidence of 80 children known or suspected of being trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation and forced marriage. 48 of these children have gone missing from social services care and have never been found.
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