Jeff is interviewed on the issues of modern slavery on GB News programme
Cuckooing is where offenders exploit someone by taking over their home and use the property for their own purposes, often the storage of drugs or weapons but not exclusively. Victims are often targeted because they are vulnerable through addiction, age, or disability, and offenders can be violent and threatening. Exploiting someone by taking over their home is not currently a criminal offence.
The Centre for Social Justice is campaigning, with the backing of MPs Jess Phillips and Ian Duncan-Smith to prioritise the safety and well-being of adults over enslaved juveniles amid claims cuckooing is out of reach of the MSA 2015 where there is no movement and no other ‘labour’ is involved. It is claimed other offences such as drugs crimes or generic organised crime offences do not address the exploitation of the victim.
However, as documented so well by SPACE (Stop and Prevent Adolescent Criminal Exploitation) SPACE | Stop & Prevent Adolescent Criminal Exploitation | Countylines (bespaceaware.co.uk) cuckooed adults are often victims in County Lines-related criminality, but they are nearly always secondary victims to those exploited to sell drugs.
SPACE, who carry out fantastic work in all areas of child criminal exploitation have said following release of the CSJ report Cuckooing - The Centre for Social Justice:
"Did Jess Philiips, IDS and CSJ speak to the many parents of exploited children who have had to spend days, weeks and months in cuckooed properties, or never made it out alive?
Abdi Ali, a 17 year old CCE victim from Enfield, was reported missing and found violently murdered by the cuckooed adult, his body then hidden in his attic for eight months...read article.
To ignore the primary victims, MINORS (who under UK Modern Slavery laws cannot consent to their own abuse/exploitation/trafficking), is breathtakingly ignorant.
It's Countylines-exploited children who've driven CCE to be the top UK NRM child slavery category for many years now.
This is a harmful call, once again from people who have access to politicians, people with power and influence but lacking the full, complex understanding and nuance in County Lines and Child Criminal Exploitation (yes, a form of slavery whether you agree or not) to realise this will shaft exploited victims directed into cuckooed properties by their exploiters."
Please see what Jeff Norman from Stop Slavery Today had to say below in conversation with Arlene Foster on GB News (my input is 25.41 - 31.25)...watch clip