SAMS Partnership - About Modern Slavery

Modern slavery

Modern Slavery in the UK. The Global Slavery Index estimates that the United Kingdom is home to 136,000 people exploited through Modern Slavery. In 2021, 12,727 potential victims of modern slavery within were referred to the Home Office in 2021, representing a 20% increase compared to the preceding year (10,601).

77% (9,790) were male and 23% (2,923) were female
58% (7,434) of potential victims claimed exploitation in the UK only and 31% (3,883) claimed exploitation overseas only
50% (6,411) of referrals were for potential victims who claimed exploitation as adults and 43% (5,468) claimed exploitation as children
for adult potential victims, labour exploitation was most reported (33%; 2,141), whereas child potential victims were most often referred for criminal exploitation (49%; 2,689)
the most common nationalities referred this year were UK, Albanian and Vietnamese

Modern Slavery is an umbrella term for offences involved when one person obtains or holds another person in compelled service. The UK’s Modern Slavery Act identifies these crimes as holding a person in a position of slavery, servitude forced or compulsory labour, or trafficking through facilitating their travel with the intention of exploiting them soon after.

Slavery is when someone takes ownership of another person like a piece of property and often requires them to perform forced or compulsory labour. This usually restricts that person’s freedom of movement and exercises power over that person’s choices.

Human Trafficking is when a person arranges or facilitates the travel of a woman, man or child with a view to that person being exploited. The movement could be international but also within the country, from one city to another or even just a few streets. A person is a victim of human trafficking even if they haven’t yet been exploited but have been moved for the purposes of exploitation. The United Nations defines Human Trafficking in the Palermo Protocol:

Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of 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, for the purpose of exploitation.

Human Trafficking = Act + Means + Purpose

All three components must be present for an adult to be considered trafficked

Servitude is similar to slavery, in that a person is under an obligation to provide a service which is imposed on them. An individual might live on a person’s premises, work for them and be unable to leave.

Forced or Compulsory Labour is ‘work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the person has not offered himself voluntarily’and has been found in a number of different industries including manufacturing, food processing, agriculture and hospitality.

The National Crime Agency highlights that within the UK there are several broad categories of exploitation linked to human trafficking, including:

Forced labour
Sexual exploitation
Domestic servitude
Organ harvesting
Child related crimes such as child sexual exploitation, forced begging, illegal drug cultivation, organised theft, related benefit frauds, etc.
Forced marriage and illegal adoption (if other constituent elements are present)

Someone is in Modern Slavery if they are:

forced to work through mental or physical threat
owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse
dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’
physically constrained or have restrictions placed on his/her freedom