Anti-Trafficking Legal Project (ATLeP)   ATLeP Home About ATLeP ATLeP Training ATLeP Country Research Law and Policy Caselaw Trafficking Research Research websites Support for Victims Contact details About ATLeP Our policy work Publications         ATLeP - The Anti-Trafficking Legal Project - is a network of practitioners who advise represent and support victims of trafficking and other vulnerable people. Contact details Raggi Kotak, Co-ordinator ATLeP c/o 1 Pump Court Temple London EC4Y 7AB Email: atlep1@gmail.com   Back to top About ATLeP ATLeP was set up in September 2006 by a number of barristers and solicitors experienced in representing victims of trafficking and other vulnerable clients. The project was initiated because of our collective concern to pool knowledge and experience on trafficking and other vulnerable women and child victim cases. We are all conscious of the limited resources available to prepare and present these cases. ATLeP hopes to encourage collective working practices amongst all practitioners who work with these vulnerable clients as a way to deal with funding strictures. ATLeP is open to all practitioners and we encourage people to join and/ or to comment on or contribute to the information base we are compiling. We have arranged to make our materials available on the EIN public website so that the data can be easily accessed by practitioners - and these will in due course be duplicated in the Members site for convenience to EIN members ATLeP aims to develop and promote comprehensive legal advice, training and information on trafficking for the representatives, supporters and advisors of trafficking victims. We aim to organize a number of training sessions and to produce information packs for those dealing with trafficking victims. The courses and information cover welfare and immigration issues, support, medical and psychiatric issues as well as practical issues associated with their support, case preparation and presentation. Our first training session - on 11 October 2007 - dealt with Legal Issues Affecting Victims of Trafficking, aimed at lawyers representing in immigration cases. Our second training session on 25th October 2007 repeated on the 12th November 2007, in London was designed for other professionals, not immigration lawyers, who working with or come into contact with victims of trafficking. See the ATLeP Training page for details of forthcoming courses and information handouts and papers from our training sessions. Back to top ATLeP's Policy Work ATLeP aims to use the experienced gained from our practice to influence policy affecting victims of trafficking and vulnerable women and children. Our activities include: • Together with Refugee Women’s Resource Project, lobbying the Home Office in relation to the inappropriate use of Super Fast Track and detention procedures for women who have been trafficked.  The Home Office accepted that victims of trafficking who had independent evidence of such were unlikely to be suitable for the Detained Fast Track process. See UK Policy Guidance and Instructions on the Law and Policy page. • Ongoing work to urge the Legal Services Commission to take trafficking cases out of the graduated fee scheme due to the vulnerability of claimants and the extended, specialist representation  work these cases require. • Providing evidence to the Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into Human Trafficking (Feb 2008). Read our submission here. ATLeP was also invited to give oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on 17 June 2008. The Committee requested further written submissions on the issues raised in relation to appropriate Social Services support for child victims of trafficking and in relation to the Graduated Fee Scheme. These are available here. The final report of the Home Affairs Committee Inquiry, The Trade in Human Beings: Human Trafficking in the UK was published on 14 May 2009 and gave weight to ATLeP's evidence. • Lobbying on behalf of victims of trafficking during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. See our briefing (March 2008) here and refer to the Hansard comments on the Law and Policy page for the helpful ministerial statement that resulted. • Responding to the consultation on the Border and Immigration Agency Code of Practice for Keeping Children Safe From Harm. Read our submission (April 2008) here. • Calling for an exception from Dublin II procedures for victims of human trafficking alongside The AIRE Centre, Asylum Aid, ECPAT UK and Eaves Poppy Project (30 April 2008) • ATLeP has endorsed Asylum Aid's Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum. The Charter is a framework of principles aimed at persuading the UK Border Agency to take both a strategic approach to the needs of women seeking asylum and to put in place the operational procedures and safeguards that will remove the discriminatory barriers they face. See here for a copy of the Charter and information on how your organisation can endorse the Charter and get involved. Back to top ATLeP Publications and Articles The Trafficking Convention - Meaningful Protection or Rhetoric?, April 2009 In this article, ATLeP Co-ordinator Raggi Kotak discusses concerns that the manner in which the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings is to be implemented by the UK government will lead to a serious failure in the provision of some protection measures. ATLeP is grateful to Alison Harvey of ILPA for her groundwork on the Convention, on which this article is partly based.   Legal Notice: The content on ATLeP’s web pages is subject to a disclaimer. Back to top