Among refugees rescued from sinking boats in the Mediterranean this year, a surprisingly high proportion have been pregnant women. Yet the overland journey from their country of origin to Libya, from which the people-smugglers’ boats embark, sometimes takes more than a year. The strong suspicion is that the women were raped by men who saw their potential to be prostitutes. They were not refugees in the strict sense, but trafficked women bound for sexual slavery. This is one of the ways in which the lines between mass migration – including the refugees reaching southern Europe from Africa and the Middle East – and the scourge of slave trafficking, become blurred.

There are other links, one of which has been brought to the surface by the intention of the French Government to close the unofficial refugee camp at Calais. The British Government, having prevaricated for many months, has woken up to the fact that there are hundreds of unaccompanied young people in the camp with a legal right to settle in Britain, who may be beyond help once the camp closes.