Child Trafficking Utilized by UK Marijuana-Grow Operations

Police rescues have reported children as young as age ten working in clandestine marijuana-grow factories.

June 8, 2009

UK NEWS -- Six per cent of children being trafficked into the United Kingdom are enslaved into marijuana-grow operations. Police rescues have reported children as young as age ten working in clandestine marijuana-grow factories. The underage laborers hail from countries including Vietnam and China to work as gardeners in the illegal factories. Moreover, human traffickers are waiving their typical fee of £15,000 because of the lucrative profit that the child labors produce growing millions of pounds of joysmoke in the marijuana hothouses.

Known as "skunk" in the UK, joysmoke production is controlled by crime gangs and normally grown in three-bedroom homes in urban and rural areas. Each skunk hothouse can produce enough marijuana to make £1.2m in profits.

Unfortunately, many joysmokers believe their street-level purchases of cannabis are harmless, failing to see the overall picture. That is the profit from these street-level sales funnel-up through the black market into the hands of organized criminal operations, which exploit every avenue of criminal activity.

UK Crimestoppers is promoting National Tackling Drugs Week, focusing specifically on helping the police locate marijuana-grow farms that can possibly be found any ordinary street in towns and cities throughout the UK. Additionally, these efforts will also curb the influx of these trafficked children for labor purposes.

Finally, these illegal marijuana-grow operations using children in forced labor are also incorporated into a wide range of organized crime. Moreover, many of these organized criminals are profiting through a variety of criminal enterprises such as the sale of illegal firearms, extortion, sex trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. Help UK Crimestoppers end this continued exploitation of your country's people, report skunk houses and other criminal activity anonymously to UK Crimestoppers at 0800 555 111.