Poppy Project fears as funding is cut

The Poppy Project needs £450,000 of charity aid to survive. Without it, countless victims of abuse will be left to cope alone Mansa, a 33-year-old Ghanaian woman who days ago was close to being deported, has no doubt that the Poppy Project saved her life. “I was ready to kill myself if I had gone,” she said. “I didn’t know what else I would do.” Hundreds of other victims of sex trafficking in Britain may not be so lucky. Shortly after midday last Monday, an email confirmed that ministers were withdrawing funding from the charity, which pioneered specialist services for victims of sex trafficking, and is the biggest and most established organisation of its kind. The government decision immediately prompted a campaign by luminaries such as Professor Liz Kelly, the chair of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, and urgent appeals for donations to help the project continue supporting victims of trafficking. The withdrawal of funding means that the charity requires £450,000 in donations by the end of June to continue. The impact of the funding cut on trafficking victims – an issue that David Cameron says is a “key priority” – is potentially catastrophic, according to the organisation’s case workers. Abigail Stepnitz, the national co-ordinator for the Poppy Project Eaves charity, said that the decision was “politically motivated”. “The government doesn’t like someone who will rock the boat. We were a problem for them in that sense,” she said. Since the charity joined an oversight board two years ago, assessing the government’s compliance on tackling trafficking, it has successfully appealed 17 UK Border Agency decisions on identification of trafficking victims and forced countless reassessments. Last week’s decision has also crystallised concerns that the coalition government does not regard sex trafficking as a priority – regardless of Cameron’s pledges. Stepnitz points to letters from officials, which concede that, while the rape experienced by victims is “unfortunate”, it does not qualify them for government help. Her all-female team of 16 support workers provides around-the-clock support and accommodation for those women who are trafficked to Britain and forced into prostitution or servitude. More than 700 have received help since the organisation was founded in 2003. The organisation’s virtues were underlined by the rescue of Mansa, days before news of the funding decision. In 2003, the Ghanaian had been taken from Heathrow airport to a rural house where she was held and “tortured and sexually abused” over four years. Faced with her deportation, the Poppy Project argued that, after eight years in the UK and with an abusive family in Ghana, she would be better to receive continuing support at its Sheffield office. On the morning of her scheduled deportation flight from London on 1

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