Modern slavery is an umbrella term encompassing slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. Victims of modern slavery are unable to leave their situation of exploitation, controlled by threats, punishment, violence, coercion and deception. Slavery violates human rights, denying people of their right to life, freedom and security. Modern slavery is a serious crime. Individuals are exploited for little or no pay. Exploitation includes, but is not limited to, sexual exploitation, forced or bonded labour, forced criminality, domestic servitude and the removal of organs.
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Modern Day Slavery
This covers a range of exploitation including; human trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced labour, debt bondage, domestic servitude, criminal activities, child labour, child sexual exploitation (CSE) and forced and early marriage. Dame Sara Thornton DBE QPM is the UK’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. Anti Slavery Commissioner’s Strategic Plan 2019 – 2021
View the Data: https://iascresearch.nottingham.ac.uk/
Modern slavery is an umbrella term encompassing slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. Victims of modern slavery are unable to leave their situation of exploitation, controlled by threats, punishment, violence, coercion and deception. Slavery violates human rights, denying people of their right to life, freedom and security. Modern slavery is a serious crime. Individuals are exploited for little or no pay. Exploitation includes, but is not limited to, sexual exploitation, forced or bonded labour, forced criminality, domestic servitude and the removal of organs.
Modern Slavery in the UK
The UK is both a country of destination, with thousands of victims arriving from other countries only to be exploited by criminals. A source country with increasing numbers of British victims identified. Slavery takes many different forms and affects adults and children, males and females. Those who are enslaved are exploited for the financial gain of their captors. The vulnerable are made to work in cruel conditions for long hours without pay. Examples include women and girls forced into prostitution for profit, young boys made to commit criminal acts against their will and men kept in slave-like conditions in factories.
Last year there was a total of 6,993 recorded victims of modern slavery in the UK. This is a 36% increase on the year before. Victims came from 130 different countries, with the top 3 being the UK, Albania and Vietnam.
The most common exploitation type recorded for potential victims exploited as adults and children was labour exploitation, a category which also includes criminal exploitation.
Slave masters and human traffickers in the UK will coerce and control their victims, keeping them in slavery for weeks, months or years at a time. Individuals are often deceived into working in slave-like conditions, and then threatened in order to keep them there. Victims are moved from abuser to abuser . They are usually too afraid of their captors to risk escape, making slavery a hidden, complex crime.
The UK has an established system of support, namely, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for those victims who do escape or are rescued This was introduced in 2009. The NRM provides accommodation and other vital services for victims for a minimum of 45 days. The NRM exists outside statute, and many organisations also support victims of modern slavery before, during and after exiting the NRM. Although modern slavery can involve the movement of people across an international border, it is also possible to be a victim within one’s own country; for example, last year the UK was in the top 3 countries of origin for all potential victims in the UK.
Dame Sara Thornton DBE QPM is the UK’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. Part 4 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 created the role of the Commissioner. http://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/media/1329/independent-anti-slavery-commissioners-strategic-plan-19-21-screen-readable.pdf
UKPAC Modern Day Slavery News and the latest helpline data Modern Slavery Helpline – Quarter 4 Report 2018 This document and the hand book developed as a result are available here.
The international freight forwarder, John Shirley Ltd, has joined forces with anti-slavery charity Unseen, Canterbury Soroptimists and the UN to launch a new campaign May 2019 to raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK and across Europe. Stickers (pictured above) will be put on 200 lorries, asking people who may have witnessed any incident that looks like human trafficking or slavery to report it.
SI Cockermouth & District handing over New Start Bags for trafficked people to Cumbria Police.
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Child trafficking
is defined in the United Nations Palermo Protocol as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt” of a child for the purpose of exploitation. The definition of child trafficking differs slightly from that of adults. An extra stage for trafficking to be present. That of the Means, “of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.” The Means stage is not required for the definition of child trafficking. This is not to say that this stage does not occur for child victims. The definition recognises that a child cannot give informed consent to his or her own exploitation, even if he or she agrees to travel or understands what has happened.
How is a child defined?
A child is defined by the Palermo Protocol and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as any person under the age of 18. How is a separated child defined? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a separated child as “a child who has been separated from both parents, or from their previous legal or customary caregiver. This might not necessarily from other relatives. This may, therefore, include a child accompanied by other adult family members. How is an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child (UASC) defined? The Department for Education’s Statutory guidance for local authorities on the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking and trafficked children defines an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child as a “child who is applying for asylum in their own right and is separated from both parents and is not being cared for by an adult who in law or by custom has responsibility to do so”.
How is an unaccompanied child defined?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines an unaccompanied child as a “child who has been separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so”.
Global trafficking statistics
Worldwide, 40.3 million men, women and children were victims of modern slavery on any day in 2016. Walk Free Foundation,Global Slavery Index, 2018
1 in 4 victims of modern slavery in 2016 were children – a total of 10.1 million child victims.
International Labour Organisation, Walk Free Foundation and International Organisation for Migration, Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage, 2017
UK trafficking statistics
6,993 potential victims of human trafficking were identified in 2018. National Crime Agency, National Referral Mechanism Statistics: End of Year Summary, 2018
Nearly half (45%) of all potential victims of trafficking (3,137 victims) were children aged 18 and under. National Crime Agency,National Referral Mechanism Statistics: End of Year Summary 2018
The United Kingdom is the most prominent country of origin for trafficked children. A total of 1,421 reported cases followed by Vietnam (320), Sudan (232), Albania (217), Eritrea (196), Romania (74), Iraq (66), Eithiopia (63), Afghanistan (55), Nigeria (49) and Iran (39).
National Crime Agency, National Referral Mechanism Statistics: End of Year Summary, 2018
A quarter of all trafficked children go missing from local authority care. ECPAT UK and Missing People, Still in Harm’s Way: An update report on trafficked and unaccompanied children going missing from care in the UK, 2018
