Why Duchess is determined to expose darkest horrors of war
The Duchess of Edinburgh would like to be put out of a job.
'It's a privilege,' she says of her work with victims of sexual violence in war. 'I just wish it would get less.'
Saying 'the stories never get any easier and they never change', she adds of her travel to conflict zones around the world: 'It doesn't seem to stop.'
The Duchess is speaking as she visits the Imperial War Museum's first exhibition about the untold stories of war.
From Second World War child evacuees to Ukrainian women today, she sees six rooms of evidence, first-hand testimonies and photographs that detail how rape has been, and still is, used as a weapon of war.
'We have to help people to understand that they [victims] are not the ones who have the shame, they are not the ones whose lives should be destroyed,' the Duchess says.
'We have to do better.'
Her visit to the exhibition, Unsilenced, comes ahead of International Day to End Sexual Violence in Conflict on June 19.
And it follows Sophie's trips to Kosovo, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Chad to hear from rape survivors and their children.
In October 2024, she became the first member of the Royal family to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
The war in Europe, the Duchess says, has brought sexual violence 'into stark reality' for the public in Britain.
'A lot more people are more aware ... because suddenly it's happened where people can suddenly see it and it's more related to them,' she said.
'Suddenly it's being brought into sharp focus. When we have a conflict in Europe, it brings it into stark reality but we must not forget conflicts in Africa.
'They are just as important. Sometimes I just feel, sadly, that Sudan and the DRC, they get slightly swept aside.'
'People can only cope with a certain amount,' she adds. 'What do you do? What's the most important conflict? They all seem to get drowned out.
'It's very hard so we have to keep going. Exhibitions like these are very important. Just to bring it to the wider awareness of the public.'
It is a mission that has been close to her heart for some time. It is also one of the most challenging topics imaginable for a member of the Royal family.
When she became a full time working Royal in 2002, the Duchess tried several routes to find patronages and causes that she could get her teeth into.
She leaned into a natural interest in gender equality, founded the Women's Network Forum in 2014, and was drawn into events for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, meeting Angelina Jolie, its co-founder, at the Royal Festival Hall in 2018.
'Profoundly moved by the things she has learnt'
The following year, when Sophie, then the Countess of Wessex, announced she would be working formally with the organisation, a Palace source told The Telegraph: 'This a new strand of work for HRH, something she has been slowly stepping into and engaging with over recent months.
'She has been profoundly moved by the things she's learnt.'
There was something about the topic that 'just clicked for her', another insider says now.
'It's a very genuine thing she's really committed herself to. She wants to be of use, to draw attention to something that will make a difference.
'She's met a lot of survivors over the years and carries that with her.'
It is not an easy subject to have chosen. The extreme graphic details the Duchess hears are difficult to share with the world; the impact and progress of her campaigning impossible to measure as wars continue to rage around the world.
Practical and operating largely under the radar – her engagements are not covered by the press generally – it does not seem to particularly deter her.
She speaks carefully (thanks to her previous career in PR) but confidently: in 2019, addressing the Commonwealth women's affairs ministers meeting in Kenya, she called for a ' sustainable and feminist peace '.
At the exhibition, she asks repeatedly whether victims of sexual violence have been consulted in putting the exhibit together.
'The stories bring you to your knees'
The Duchess has described how she was left 'completely and utterly floored' the first time she heard testimony from a survivor.
Until then, she told the BBC in 2021, she had read about it in 'very dry' briefing notes and statistics. 'It was truly upsetting,' she said of hearing directly from women. 'But I feel in a way it was really important to hear the actual reality.'
'When you hear someone's story of gang rape it absolutely brings you to your knees. I had tears falling off my face when she was talking to me. I was completely silent but I was in floods of tears.'
Every story, she says, lives with her.
'It seems so enormous. I was thinking how on earth am I going to be able to make even a tiny bit of difference. I have to concentrate on one foot in front of the other,' she said.
At the Imperial War Museum, the Duchess wears her heart on her sleeve.
She snorts at the differing advice for men and women for preventing the spread of venereal disease during the Second World War (the women always to blame), and wryly declares the use of paintings of half-naked women being allowed on RAF airplane noses up until 2007 'surprising'.
Shown papers relating to the abuse of Second World War evacuees and told about British, French and US soldiers also being known to have committed abuse – albeit not state-sanctioned – the Duchess agreed: 'It's not just happening to foreigners by foreigners.
'It is endemic around the world, which is why it's such an important thing to recognise and address.'
The exhibition contains items from the First World War onwards. The Duchess was shown sections relating to the 'Comfort Women Corps' in the Second World War in Japan, the Yazidi women enslaved by Islamic State in 2014, and the treatment of Bosnian children born of sexual violence in conflict.
'Did you work with survivors?' she asked Helen Upcraft, the lead curator, and Jack Davies, the exhibitions manager. 'Obviously it's about them, their voices are important. We don't want to talk about them without them feeling they have had representation and the ability to tell their own stories.'
The small show has been developed alongside four NGOs: Women for Women International, All Survivors Project, Free Yezidi Foundation and Waging Peace.
Artwork ends exhibition on positive note
'This is such a huge subject, so many have been and are being affected by it,' the Duchess added, hearing that the exhibition wa designed to end on a positive note, with a traditional cloth artwork called Peace by Piece, created by Sudanese women.
'It's very easy to leave people feeling utterly depressed and bereft.'
She suggests that there could be a wall or table at the end for visitors to write their final thoughts or messages on.
Told that the exhibition has been seen by university students, but is for over-16s only due to its content, the Duchess agrees: 'You don't want to traumatise them.'
Nevertheless, she suggests, the explanation of power dynamics could be useful when 'they're trying to navigate themselves through school and all the social media'.
'Hopefully they won't ever come into contact with this sort of thing, but there is a chance that they might and having that wider knowledge is important,' she added.
Congratulated for her own work with survivors through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, Sophie said: 'If only we could do ourselves out of a job.'
In October last year, The Telegraph travelled with the Duchess to the refugee camp of Adré on the Chad-Sudan border, where she met victims of rape and torture living as refugees.
The Duchess, who was seen in tears after leaving a tent where she spoke to women about all they had suffered, said: 'What they have all witnessed is complete atrocity.'
In April 2024, she travelled to Ukraine to meet survivors of sexual violence, and discussed how to support them with Volodymyr Zelensky and Olena Zelenska, Ukraine's president and first lady.
She is intending to make further trips overseas to highlight the issue, but no destinations have been confirmed yet.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who has travelled widely with the Duchess to areas including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has praised her ability to make people feel at ease and her 'deeply human personal skills'.
Speaking in Nepal towards the end of a six-day Royal tour in February, the Duchess said of victims of human trafficking and sexual violence: 'If people in my position don't champion people like that, they have very little voice.
'And to change behaviours you have to keep banging the drum. So I keep on banging the drum.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
35 minutes ago
- Sky News
'Ordering a woman to be sexually exploited is as easy as ordering a takeaway': How trafficking victims are being sold online
*Sarah thought she was going to a job interview to become a waitress. Warning: This story includes graphic descriptions of sexual exploitation and abuse, including rape Instead, she was lured to a strange man's flat and held against her will for six months. "One of the very first things he did was ask for me to hand over my passport to check that I had the right to work," she says. "I remember him asking me kind of odd questions, like, 'do you like sex?' "I remember him taking me into another room within this flat and closing the door behind him, then locking the door. And then I was raped." She says her passport was used to create an online profile to advertise her for sex. She had no control over the adverts, no access to the accounts, and was repeatedly abused by her trafficker and the men who booked her through the website. "My abuser would say: 'This man would like to see you, he's booked you, but he's requested sloppy seconds. Okay? I am going to rape you again so that when you go and see this man, you will take that to that man'," she tells Sky News. Sarah says she was forced to take on different names to match her trafficker's rotating online personas. She ultimately escaped after threatening to scream unless her abuser let her go. "He just glared at me, furious," she recalls. "But he opened the door. That was the moment I had. That was the moment I took. I ran out and never saw him again." Sarah's abuser is now in prison. But the website that he used to facilitate her abuse is still operating. A Sky News investigation has uncovered thousands of potential indicators of sexual exploitation on two of the UK's most prominent adult service websites, raising serious concerns about how traffickers may be using these platforms to advertise and abuse victims like Sarah. Analysis of more than 50,000 adverts on AdultWork and Vivastreet - two of the country's largest escorting platforms - revealed a high concentration of red flags linked to organised exploitation, including repeated use of the same contact numbers, and/or duplicated advert text, across adverts for different women in different geographical locations. These patterns, highlighted by the Sex Trafficking Indication Matrix (STIM), a research tool used to identify signs of trafficking, suggest some profiles may be linked to coercive networks. In one case, the same phone number appeared in eight separate adverts for at least five different women, all listed with identical ages, nearly identical descriptions, but different photographs and spread across multiple UK regions. Neither platform is accused of criminal activity, but experts and campaigners say the scale and nature of these indicators are red flags for potential abuse. Prostitution is legal in England and Wales. But the controlling of prostitution for gain, sometimes called pimping, and the more severe crime of trafficking, are not. "These platforms make it as easy to order a woman to be sexually exploited as it is to order a takeaway," said Kat Banyard, director of campaign group UK Feminista. "There are big questions for national policing to answer about why it is that this important investigation has had to be done by Sky News, and why it wasn't national policing that was launching an investigation to uncover the scale of potential criminality on these sites." Over several months, Sky News used STIM indicators to assess escorting adverts across two platforms. On Vivastreet alone, more than 7,000 were linked to phone numbers that appeared multiple times - more than half the total number of listings at the time. On AdultWork, over 1,000 ads were found to contain duplicated descriptions. In one example on AdultWork, the same wording was used in 357 different listings - a sign that content may have been copied and pasted to cover for multiple individuals under a single operator. The websites told us duplication can reflect legitimate activity, such as touring sex workers using aliases. However, opponents say their structure allows abusers to hide in plain sight. Sky News can also reveal that officials at the Home Office met representatives from escorting websites 25 times between 2017 and 2024, under the previous Conservative government. Critics argue these discussions have failed to lead to meaningful safeguards or regulation. A Home Affairs Committee report in 2023 was highly critical of this kind of engagement. And in parliament, pressure is building to take stronger action. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi has tabled an amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill that would seek to ban such websites altogether. "This is a thriving, multibillion-pound industry, and we're acting like there's nothing to see here," she says. "It's horrific, and I think more people need to be speaking out about it - this gives parliamentarians the opportunity to discuss and debate it on the floor of the house." In a statement, a Vivastreet spokesperson said: "Experts are clear that indicators that may suggest exploitation can have innocent explanations. "For example, it is a fact that many sex workers use different names and personas, and 'touring' - moving for short periods of time to different areas to take bookings - is a well-known practice. "We take safety extremely seriously and deploy industry-leading security measures to detect, report, and remove potentially exploitative content, including new requirements that all adult category advertisers must undergo age and ID verification." AdultWork said: "Sexual exploitation is not tolerated in any form. "We have strict internal policies in place to reinforce this and we are continually updating our internal systems for detecting accounts and requesting additional documents for evidence of legitimacy. "We make it a priority to fully cooperate and comply with all law enforcement requests. Additionally, any indications or reports of trafficking are fully reviewed and if we find them to be suspicious, we proactively contact law enforcement." Whether escorting platforms can be better regulated - or whether they should be outlawed entirely - remains a point of national debate. But with mounting evidence of potential exploitation and growing political scrutiny, campaigners say inaction is no longer an option. "These platforms are so poorly moderated and poorly regulated," Sarah says. "No one can sit behind a screen and know if someone's being coerced or is at the mercy of a predator."
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Britain's traveller land-grab blitz revealed: The communities under siege from 'illegal' developments that have left locals 'powerless' to stop them
Land-grabbing travellers are blitzing Britain, seizing secluded plots of countryside 'illegally' to turn them into vast caravan parks - with a new map today laying bare the scale of the crisis now blighting the nation. Over the past two months, scores of communities across the UK have seen unauthorised camps springing up in isolated fields, prized rural green belts and protected national parks. The blight has affected villages and towns in Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Gloucester, Devon, Worcestershire, Cheshire and in Hampshire's New Forest, MailOnline has found. Terrified locals say they are 'powerless' to act, with some fearful of reprisals for speaking out against the shameless flouting of strict planning laws. Meanwhile, furious MPs have lambasted the travellers' brazen tactics, which they say makes a 'mockery' of the building development rules millions of law-abiding Britons are forced to abide by. However, those breaching the rules have insisted they are doing it because of the nationwide glut of official sites, and the 'stigma' nomadic residents in the traveller and gypsy communities face staying at the road side. 'We want to make a home where we can raise our children, giving them access to education and medical facilities that we never had growing up, we just want to improve our children's futures and our families' living standards,' one traveller said. In the space of a few weeks, at least nine 'illegal' sites have appeared across the UK - all seemingly using a 'carbon copy' modus operandi. However, this is feared to be just the tip of the iceberg, with many more having been set up in previous years. It's seen those behind the builds carrying out 'military-style' operations to rapidly construct new traveller developments before officials can stop them, transforming rural plots of field and grassland into sprawling, concreted caravan parks. In Devon, a group of suspected travellers launched a blitzkrieg at the start of last week, using diggers and industrial kit to effectively demolish a former pony field in just 24 hours, leaving residents horrified. 'This is an atrocity... it's devastated the countryside with absolutely no thought for the harm it will cause,' one furious 47-year-old woman, who lives locally, told MailOnline. 'We feel absolutely powerless right now... It's one rule for one part of society and another rule for the other.' A similar development took place on the outskirts of Burtonwood, near Warrington, in Cheshire, when bulldozers, excavators and HGVs took just 72 hours to turn a six-acre field into a large gravel car park over the last May bank holiday. 'I have never felt so impotent as a councillor in not being able to do something,' local politician Stuart Mann said. 'It was a military operation in terms of how [the travellers] achieved it.' In the Worcestershire village of Hagley, more than a dozen trucks arrived on one field at 3.30am on Good Friday in April, working through the night to turn it into a caravan park, with hard-standing, fencing and even a children's play area installed. 'We're scared... we feel absolutely powerless right now,' one 42-year-old resident told MailOnline. 'Everyone has had to up their security now. 'All this has happened in the space of 48 hours. They were so fast. I've never known anything to happen so fast. It was insane. 'They arrived at 3.30am. It was non-stop. They arrived with lorry after lorry. Nobody knew what to do. Everyone was calling 101. 'It's made everyone feel a little uneasy. People are worried about their safety.' Sleepy villages dotted around Nottinghamshire have also been targeted. In Balderton, a group of travellers used excavators, diggers and large trucks to flatten a plot of land 'dangerously close' to a major high-speed railway line. The works took place during May's VE Day bank holiday and was completed in just three days before council officials were able to serve an enforcement notice ordering the remaining construction to be halted. 'We felt sick. Your stomach drops out,' one local said. 'We thought this was our forever home. We love the neighbours - then suddenly they turn up and build a traveller camp on our doorstep. It's going to reduce the value of properties here.' A similar development took place a few miles north, between the nearby villages of Weston and Egmanton. A huge 40-pitch caravan site was built over the Easter bank holiday in April without planning permission. The site, in a field off the A1, was also finished in a few days, with tarmac roads and fences installed. Locals said they had also seen septic tanks sunk, electricity and water illegitimately connected, and key drainage dykes filled to create the site access. In Buckinghamshire, the rural village of Lee Gate was targeted over the May bank holiday, with diggers levelling a field without permission before five caravans and a static mobile home appeared. The isolated community is just a few miles away from the former homes of Hollywood A-listers Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who once owned a property in Gerrards Cross - dubbed the 'Beverly Hills of Buckinghamshire'. Other former celebrity neighbours reportedly included the 'Prince of Darkness' Ozzy Osbourne, Oasis mega star Noel Gallagher, and late British TV icon, Cilla Black. An enforcement notice has been served by the local council. Meanwhile, worried residents are braced to stage a community meeting on June 24 to finalise a battleplan to tackle the travellers' unauthorised build. One horrified neighbour, who asked not to be named, found out about the sudden encampment while on holiday in the Canary Islands with his wife. 'Our neighbour messaged us saying people with diggers, trucks - you name it - had arrived at 5.30am and were carrying out work,' he said. 'They just barged through the fence with a digger and built their own gate because the road with shared access to the field was too narrow. 'When we found out we were horrified. It was absolutely disgusting. 'Police were there within an hour but they couldn't do much to stop it. 'The council put a stop notice there. But the whole area has been flattened, six pitches created. Now we're stuck with them.' In the Bedfordshire town of Felmersham, travellers moved onto a field they own in Pavenham Road over the Easter holiday and are now seeking to make it a permanent camp. Bedfordshire Borough Council served the group with a temporary stop notice which bans them from spreading stones, gravel or tarmac on the land. The council has since received a retrospective planning application for a change of use of the field, which, if approved, would see five residential pitches for 11 mobile homes and four caravans, parking, groundwork and landscaping. During the VE Day bank holiday at the start of May a stunning patch of protected West Sussex countryside, in the heart of the South Downs National Park, was devastated by travellers. The tranquil plot off Blind Lane, in Lurgashall near Petworth, was transformed into a building site as heavy machinery ploughed through the field without planning permission, turning it into gravel car park, with 10 caravans later appearing there. It's unclear who was responsible for the unauthorised development. It has triggered legal action from Chichester District Council, which served a stop notice ordering all works to cease. Andrew Griffith, Arundel and South Downs MP, was appalled by the unauthorised development and feared it was just one of a series of 'landgrabs' taking place nationwide. 'These are clearly deliberate and meticulously planned operations,' Mr Griffith, the Conservatives' Shadow Business and Trade Secretary, told MailOnline. 'In the Lurgashall case it took far too long for the local council to act leaving ratepayers and residents at the mercy of this devastating planning blight. 'It is clearly foreseeable that bank holiday weekends are the moment of maximum danger and yet that's when town halls fail to ensure staff cover.' He added: 'It makes a mockery of a system where we all jump through lengthy and costly hoops to install a dormer window when such brazen breaches happen unchecked.' Across the Sussex border and into Hampshire, the New Forest has also been impacted. Residents living in the quintessentially British community of Burley have lashed out over the unauthorised development on the outskirts of the village. Those behind the project have been accused of shamelessly flouting planning rules by paving over part of a field and installing a number of caravans and mobile homes. It's led to a months-long row, with a judgement on whether a retrospective planning application to allow it to stay or not, set to be made in a matter of weeks. However, it has sparked a fierce backlash, with one ex-minister raging those behind the scheme should have their 'civil rights... forfeited' over the flagrant rule break. One villager fumed: 'The travellers have shown complete disregard for the community... It's a level of disrespect. They have come in and destroyed protected lands without permission.' The woodland idyll, nestled between Southampton and Bournemouth, is home to about 1,350 people and is heavily reliant on tourism in the summer. It has no railway station, one primary school, a village shop and a sporadic bus service. Those living there are fiercely protective of their historic home's unspoilt, natural surroundings and have been left outraged by the gypsy development. The site, on a former pony field off Ringwood Road, was converted without permission several weeks ago. It's a stone's throw away from the luxury Burley Manor hotel, which is a medieval Grade II-listed building. Those on the camp have since submitted a retrospective planning bid for two static caravans, two touring caravans, parking, bin and cycle stores, e-bike charging points, boundary fencing, and an extension of existing hardstanding. MailOnline understands the site is home to two families, who own the land. The proposals - which are yet to be decided by the New Forest National Park Authority (NFNPA) - triggered a furious response, with dozens of objections lodged. Local Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne is also among those attacking the development, which he says had 'alarmed' his constituents. 'It's not been helped by the rather aggressive sign put up, that strikes fear into the community,' he added. 'What sort of people are these, who are putting up this intimidatory sign telling people to 'keep out' or the dogs will get you'?' A deadline for a decision on the application is July 2 - however, officials at the NFNPA hope to have made a judgement before this date. However, former minister Sir Desmond feared the controversial scheme could be approved on the basis of 'human rights', allowing travellers to remain on the land instead of dismantling all the work that has already been undertaken there. Hitting out, the New Forest West MP told MailOnline: 'When you break the law you should forfeit your civil rights. Breaches in the law – even in planning regulations - should not be whipped through on the basis of human rights.' The application has been submitted by Michael Chalk and Tom Butler, who live on the site with their families. Planning consultant Tony White, who is representing the pairs' development bid, told MailOnline: 'Nationally councils have persistently failed to meet the statutory obligations to provide sites and pitches to meet the identified needs of gypsies and travellers. 'Faced with tougher policing powers to prevent roadside stopping, many gypsies and travellers feel they have no choice but to move on to their own privately-owned land before obtaining planning permission and are often forced to do so because of prejudice they encounter when roadside. 'The site prior to the two young families moving on, consisted of a brick built stable bock, large area of hardstanding and paddocks, they have carried out very little work to facilitate the occupation of the site, all of which can and will be removed should they be unsuccessful in the planning process. 'It is recognised that some residents will have concerns about the change or by travellers moving in nearby, but Mr Chalk and Mr Butler have in large part been made to feel very welcome in the village and are looking forward to their children attending the local schools and the families integrating with the settled community. 'Mr Buttler would like to add that they wish to reassure those residents who have expressed to the Mail they have fears or concerns, that it is only Mr Chalk's family and my family, that intend to live here and we want to make a home where we can raise our children, giving them access to education and medical facilities that we never had growing up, we just want to improve our children's futures and our families living standards.' Mr White added the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (Amended) contains provisions to 'regularise unauthorised works, through retrospective applications and lawful development certificates'. 'These are utilised for many reasons and by all sectors of communities, but I can assure you, that any decision on the planning application, will not be swayed or influenced by the applicants having moved on to their property ahead of the decision,' he said. The news comes as the number of 'illegal' traveller sites being set up across the UK continues to soar, with local councils increasingly unable to remove them. New planning policy announced by Labour housing secretary Angela Rayner in December will force councils to release green belt land for travellers to create permanent encampments if there is an 'unmet need'. At present neither temporary or permanent travellers sites are allowed on green belt land as they fail to qualify as 'very special circumstances' - but that is about to change. In the original consultation published to the National Planning Policy Framework in August, the document states: 'We intend our proposals to support the release of green belt land to address unmet needs for traveller sites.' The response to the consultation, published in December, made clear that proposals should not be regarded as 'inappropriate' in cases where there is an 'unmet need' for the type of development - including traveller sites. In January this year South Gloucestershire Council announced the location of 100 new traveller sites, many of them on precious greenbelt locations. The plan also includes safeguarding 15 existing areas for travelling showpeople - and one new site for travelling showpeople in Pucklechurch. The local authority was reprimanded by a government planning inspector back in 2022 for a 'history of policy failure' after failing to provide sufficient land for travelling communities. The council has since proposed the 'expanding or intensifying' of numbers of already-existing sites and the creation of 14 brand new locations over the next 15 years. That includes the safeguarding of greenbelt land in Pucklechurch and Hambrook for traveller communities to reside on. Meanwhile, in Darlington a new site for travellers and Gypsies in Darlington has been approved after a litany of delays and refusals. Previously planning offices said the Neasham Road site was 'not in a sustainable location' and would be 'visually intrusive within an open countryside location.' The initial proposal called for five amenity buildings, five mobile homes and five touring pitches - but that was reduced to two of each type in amended plans submitted to the council in August 2024. A planning report said: 'This small development would contribute towards the delivery of windfall Gypsy and Traveller sites within the borough. 'The location of the site was considered to be sustainable by the planning inspector (as was the adjoining site more recently by another Planning Inspector) and the visual impact of the revised development is not sufficient to justify a reason to refuse the planning application.' The applicant said the need to address a shortfall of Gypsy and traveller overrode any considerations of natural beauty or environmental concerns, calling it 'a significant material consideration that would override any limited landscape impacts.' The new sites are also by no means restricted to rural greenbelt locations though as London is set to get it first new permanent pitches in over 30 years. It was announced in November last year that Haringey's Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community were due to be handed new land to live on. After a 'comprehensive review' of potential locations, the local authority said they could accommodate six permanent pitches on vacant council land. Councillor Sarah Williams, Haringey cabinet member for housing and planning, said: 'I'm delighted to be announcing proposals for developing the first new Gypsy, Roma and Traveller sites in the capital for three decades. 'Not only is it a fitting move for our borough, which prides itself on being welcoming and diverse, it also aligns completely with our commitment as a council to providing 3,000 new, affordable and great quality homes for the future. This includes specialist housing to meet the needs of all of our communities. 'The Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community are among the most discriminated against groups in the UK and face critical challenges in accessing housing that meets their cultural needs.' A new site has also been planned for Lewisham in southeast London, the first in the borough since the previous location shut down in 2009. As well as the proliferation of new traveller camps, data shows that more and more enforcement notices are being issued against pitches, which often consist of one or more mobile homes erected on private land. In Cheltenham, the council dealt with seven unauthorised sites last year - compared to none in each of the three years before that. And similarly, Wokingham's borough council issued eight enforcement notices against unauthorised traveller sites in 2023, up from just one in 2022. Meanwhile in Wiltshire, the council dealt had dealt with four unauthorised traveller sites by the end of October last year, compared to none the year before that. Speaking previously to MailOnline on the condition of anonymity, one planning enforcement officer said: 'Over the past five years and certainly off the back of Covid there has been a sharp increase in the unauthorised development that we are seeing. 'Most of the enforcement appeals that we are dealing with at the moment concern traveller sites that have often gone up over the space of a long weekend. 'But it is a nationwide issue - most other councils are all having similar issues.' The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils across the nation, said authorities were seeking to clampdown on unauthorised landgrabs. An LGA spokesman said: 'Tackling them requires a multi-agency response and appropriate resources to support this. 'Councils take their planning enforcement powers seriously and work hard to balance the needs of all members of their communities. 'Where planning rules have been breached, councils will seek to take appropriate and proportionate action.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
How feared drug cartels including Sinaloa and MS-13 are now operating INSIDE Europe with gangsters setting up meth labs in soft-touch EU to avoid growing US pressure in Latin America
France 's Minister of Justice courted controversy last month when he declared that no corner of the country was safe from the scourge of drug dealing. Speaking to French podcast LEGEND, Gérald Darmanin said even the 'smallest rural town' in France is now blighted by the illicit drugs trade. 'Drugs have always existed, but today we can clearly see that in the smallest rural town, they know about cocaine, cannabis. 'Beforehand, drugs were simply in big towns [and cities] or the metro... it has become widespread, metastasised,' he added. Many dismissed the statement, in which he went on to rail against escalating violence and call for law enforcement crackdowns, as little more than political rhetoric laying the groundwork for a widely anticipated presidential campaign ahead of 2027. Two weeks later, authorities announced the bust of a luxury villa-turned methamphetamine manufacturing facility in the sleepy countryside commune of Le Val in southeastern France. Suddenly, Darmanin's warning didn't seem so alarmist. The secret lab was later found to be the first confirmed operation of Mexico's infamous Sinaloa cartel on French soil, raising fears that one of the world's biggest and most dangerous criminal organisations is looking to expand its operations into Europe. Police claimed the lab was set up by a group of Mexicans in 2023 who arrived in France and began renting the villa. It transpired they had been commissioned by the cartel to build a meth production facility, recruit and train people in France to run it, before moving elsewhere. That terrifying discovery came less than three months after Spanish police arrested 27 members of MS-13 - the Los Angeles-based gang formed by immigrants from El Salvador - that US President Donald Trump has designated a terrorist organisation. MS-13 representatives were reportedly seeking to rapidly expand their operations in Spain and had planned to carry out a contract killing. The shocking busts validate a 2022 report in which Europol claimed that its intelligence suggested Mexican cartels were dramatically scaling up their operations in Europe amid an increase in seizures of cocaine and methamphetamines. Europe's illicit drug market is now booming, worth at least €31 billion (£26 billion) according to a 2024 report by the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA). Cocaine is the second most commonly used illicit drug in the EU behind cannabis and the second largest illicit drug market by revenue generated, accounting for roughly one third of revenues. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures suggest that the UK & Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain rank in the top five countries across Europe where cocaine use is most prevalent, with France, Italy and Spain also topping the charts for cannabis consumption. The majority of narcotics bought and sold in Europe, particularly cocaine, originates from Latin America, primarily Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. Cartels in these countries, as well as the likes of Brazil's PCC criminal organisation, leverage their formidable network of contacts with criminal enterprises and crime families across Africa and Europe to ensure their product makes it to consumers in the UK and on the continent. Some of the most notorious European groups involved in the trafficking include Italy's 'Ndragheta and Camorra crime families, Grupa Amerika and the Tito and Dino cartel in the Balkans, and the Kinahan clan and ' The Family ' in Ireland, and the Dutch-Moroccan 'Mocro Maffia'. Despite Mexico's reputation as a hub for some of the world's most feared and well-established drug trafficking operations, cartels here have traditionally favoured the US market over Europe. Their proximity and penetration into the American market meant Mexican cartels have long 'taken charge of the buying, trafficking and sale (of cocaine and other narcotics) in the United States', according to Rafael Guarin, a former presidential security adviser in Colombia. But the return of Donald Trump to the White House has seen a raft of measures designed to target cartel activity and limit the flow of fentanyl, among other drugs, across the border. Trump has pressured Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum into getting serious on tackling the cartel's outsized influence in her nation, offering to lend US military aid and increase intelligence sharing between Mexican authorities and American security services. This, coupled with the higher street value of cocaine and other drugs in Europe versus North America, may be forcing the likes of the Sinaloa cartel, MS-13 and their rivals to make efforts to diversify. Investigators inspect packages in a container in the port of Antwerp Federal agents seize submarine off Puerto Rico's Caribbean Sea coast carrying a record 2,500 kilos of cocaine Though the Sinaloa cartel will face the challenge of establishing its own criminal network in Europe if it hopes to muscle in on the continental market, the methods of transporting huge quantities of drugs across the Atlantic are already tried and tested. Hundreds of tonnes of narcotics enter Europe every year via gigantic shipping containers. Corrupt officials and cartel plants in place at both departure and receiving ports hide the drugs inside the containers and retrieve them at the other end. In the departure port, dock workers identify a container going to a port of interest, break into it, and stash the drugs among legitimate goods before sending its ID number to workers at the other end. At the receiving port, dockers make sure the dirty container is put in a specific spot where it is easy to access so it can be opened once again, the drugs removed and smuggled out of the port, and any security tags replaced with forgeries before it passes customs. Where smugglers cannot persuade the dockers to aid them, they sometimes send an empty container into the port with some of their men inside, who then break out and retrieve the stash in a method known as Trojan Horse. The Netherlands and Belgium have long served as the primary entry points for drug traffickers shuttling cocaine into Europe, particularly via port cities like Rotterdam and Antwerp. The latter last year topped the list of European cities where cocaine consumption is at its most voracious, with a March 2024 report by EUDA and SCORE group - a Europe-wide sewage analysis network - finding that 1,721 milligrams of cocaine were detected per 1,000 people per day in the port city. The Spanish region of Galicia is also renowned as one of the key gateways for drugs into Europe. Its ports were among the first to receive regular shipments from South American cartels as early as the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, cartels and criminal organisations have turned to yet more complex methods to ensure their product makes it into the hands of gleeful Europeans. To avoid seizures at ports, cargo ships are sometimes approached at sea by cartel fast boats. Either with money or force, the crew are persuaded to take the drugs on board before continuing their journey across the ocean. Before they reach land on the other end, more fast boats are dispatched to retrieve the drugs, meaning the cargo ship enters port as clean as when it departed. The cartels are so well funded that some have their own submarines designed to carry the maximum amount of weight possible while being operated by a crew of just three. Authorities estimate that each vessel costs around $1million (£750,000) to make and are painted sea blue, meaning they can leak just beneath the waves and surface under cover of night for their crew to emerge. 'Narco submarines are being built in rivers and mangroves. That's why, for example, the Amazon river in Brazil, is perfect. As soon as you open Google Maps, you realise it's a labyrinth of islets and mangroves and tributaries', Javier Romero, a local journalist, told the Wall Street Journal. 'You can hide a shipyard, then you can build it, put it into the water, and with the cover of darkness you launch it into the night.' Once the product arrives on the eastern side of the Atlantic, drug cartels and their European associates take advantage of vulnerable child migrants, using them as foot soldiers and mules to distribute their haul. Younger migrants, particularly those unaccompanied by older family members, are seen as ideal targets for recruitment. These children and young adults are typically in a precarious position - often with no means to support themselves and no legal status - and are therefore desperate for cash while their anonymity and perceived innocence make them less susceptible to detection by law enforcement. North African children, particularly Moroccans and Algerians, are thought to be those most at risk, with a recent EU police force investigation cited by the Guardian declaring: 'Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and France presented several concrete cases of the exploitation of hundreds of north African minors, recruited by drug trafficking networks to sell narcotics.' European police sources said the use of child drug mules was being conducted 'on an industrial scale'.
