What Is Modern Slavery And Are Victims Being Failed?

Despite protections under the Modern Slavery Act (2015), victims of modern slavery in the UK are still struggling to access support, or to be recognised as victims at all. In the first three months of 2021, almost 3,000 potential victims were referred to the Home Office. According to a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by EachOther to the Home Office, between January and September 2021, immigration authorities detained 229 people who were identified as possible victims of modern slavery. Now, charities have raised concerns over the government’s approach to children exploited by drug trafficking gangs and migrant victims of modern slavery, who may be detained and deported if identified.

Modern slavery is not always obvious, even if it is happening on your doorstep. Recently, stories of modern slavery in the UK have made national news, from migrants forced into domestic labour; through workers making fast fashion garments for £3.50 an hour; to cases of women in the sex trade who have been trafficked.

In 2015, Parliament passed the Modern Slavery Act, the first piece of legislation which explicitly tackled the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of slavery and human trafficking offences in England and Wales.

When former prime minister, Theresa May, came into office she made the eradication of modern slavery her mission, calling it: “The greatest human rights issue of our time”. The Home Office states that modern slavery is:

This month, the Home Office finalised its statutory guidance for identifying and supporting victims of modern slavery. To be considered a victim, an individual has to be referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the framework for identifying potential victims, by a ‘first responder’ organisation, such as the police, a local authority or a charity. If a victim is a child, the organisation must refer them; if they are an adult, they must consent to their referral.

If there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that the person is a victim of modern slavery, the potential victim’s case is then examined by a caseworker from the Single Competent Authority (SCA), which sits in the Home Office. If the SCA considers there to be ‘reasonable grounds’ that the person referred is a victim of modern slavery, the individual is supposed to receive a ‘recovery period’ of at least 45 days and support through the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC), such as safe housing and counselling.

After this, the Home Office decides whether there are ‘conclusive grounds’ to believe that they are a victim – or not. At this point, if the caseworker finds ‘conclusive grounds’, the victim gets a Recovery Needs Assessment to determine the next steps. If not, they no longer receive support, after nine days.

Emily Kenway, a former adviser to the UK’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and author of a book about modern slavery, stated:

“Modern slavery is a real experience where people have been exploited and coerced, but it is also a political tool that has been used by politicians to cast some people as victims while others are considered unacceptable victims.”

“There’s been a huge increase in identified victims over the years,” she said, adding that there was “discomfort” about the rising numbers of victims involved in drug trafficking and migrant victims in particular.

“I think the Government has been shocked by the number of people that appear to need support under the NRM. Wealthy, secure people did not realise what the economy and reality of life were for many people. They think: ‘Goodness me! I can’t believe this is happening.’”

Failure to support child victims of drug trafficking

The number of children identified as possible victims is rising – and fast. According to the latest Home Office statistics, 46 per cent of potential modern slavery victims were children, and more than half of them were victims of criminal exploitation.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 gives a legal defence to a person who is involved in criminal activities if they have been compelled to do as a consequence of their trafficking.

Dame Sara Thornton, Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, raised concerns that these child victims, who are often linked to drug trafficking, were being failed by the system meant to support them. In a report published in 2020 on statutory defence, Thornton stated:

“There is no consistent way of deciding if they are a victim or an offender”

Joe Caluori, head of research and policy for Crest Advisory said that the NRM was not designed to identify victims of county lines, the practice where a young person is exploited by a gang to transport and sell drugs from one area to another. He said that first responders, who refer children to the NRM, needed a clearer definition of trafficking to identify victims adequately.

“After a young person is identified and arrested, there is no consistent way of deciding if they are a victim or an offender,” he said, adding that when decisions are made, it is often too late in the process. Decisions are often made centrally, which risks excluding local agencies, such as social workers, with knowledge of the child’s circumstances. However, the Home Office’s localisation pilot, launched in June 2021, which devolved the decision-making process to ten local authorities, was a step in the right direction, he said.

Even after a conclusive grounds decision has been made, he wrote in a blog post, “there is no guaranteed level of support”. After the child leaves the NRM, the Home Office does not track what happens to them or necessarily give support for protection, even though they could be at risk of re-exploitation. “How are we going to make children believe they’re safe?” asked Caluori.

Caluori said: “Young people are still accountable for their actions, even where there is evidence of exploitation. They must still be held responsible for violent offences which harm others”.

Immigration offenders first, victims of modern slavery second

Charities have criticised the government for its approach to migrant victims of modern slavery who do not have the right to live in the UK.

According to a report by the Labour Exploitation Advisory Group (LEAG):

“Victims of human trafficking are being treated first as immigration offenders and secondly as victims, which is leading to long-term and severe consequences to their health and the outcomes of their victim status under the National Referral Mechanism”.

However, Maya Esslemont from AfterExploitation, who found that the majority of trafficking claims are initially rejected by the Home Office, stated:

Esslemont stated: “These figures, obtained by EachOther, show the Home Office is also knowingly detaining more people already known to them as potential or confirmed trafficking survivors. What is shocking is that these individuals are engaging with the official process to be recognised as trafficked.”

Esslemont explained that because there are no dedicated citizenship pathways for confirmed trafficking victims to apply to in the UK, those who are recognised as being victims of modern slavery may end up in the carceral system.

Home Office under scrutiny for ‘moving goalposts’ for victims of trafficking

Esslemont stated that the government was “moving the goalposts” for victims of trafficking who claim leave to remain. “Survivors have overcome all odds to put together a case, to win over the Home Office and show categorically by the Government’s own definition and criteria that they have been trafficked, and it is still not good enough,” they said. “They’re still at risk of being locked up and deported.”

Rudy Schulkind, Research and Policy Co-ordinator at Bail for Immigration Detainees, said that migrant victims of trafficking were not adequately protected and can be deported. “The reality is that you can’t protect victims of human trafficking within the immigration detention system at the moment. It is a system that treats people as immigration offenders first and foremost,” he said.

“The system doesn’t protect people once they have been identified [as victims of modern slavery]. Often people are told in the same letter: ‘We identify you as a victim of trafficking; however, you do not have any form of leave and you should leave the country’.”

Even when migrant victims of modern slavery were identified, the precarity of their situation undermined efforts to support them, said Emily Kenway.

“Think of someone in the NRM who wants to move on to a better chapter of life,” she said. “ How do you help someone re-build their life when they don’t know whether they’re going to be here [in the UK] or not?”

She said that the modern slavery system appears to show a “preference” for people who have the right to be in the UK, describing it as an “attempt to cast people subject to immigration control as not acceptable victims.”

“Modern slavery has been used as a frame to try to say exploitation is anomalous. That if we lock the nasty people up, everything will be fine. It absolves the immigration system.”

Victims of modern slavery could be deported to Rwanda

The Nationality and Borders Act, which was passed by Parliament earlier this month, sets provisions for the government to remove support for migrant modern slavery victims if they have served a prison sentence of 12 months or more and reduces the time allowed for victims to disclose their exploitation.

In a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel sent in September last year, Dame Sara said: “There is a real risk this will limit victim engagement in prosecutions and therefore significantly undermine the ability of law enforcement to bring traffickers to justice.”

Speaking about the provisions to set time limits for victims to come forward, she said: “I am concerned that these changes would make the identification of victims of modern slavery harder.”

The Government is facing legal action for the heavily criticised legislation, which plans to send refugees to Rwanda, potentially including victims of modern slavery.

Jamie Fookes from the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group in a blog post for Anti-Slavery International accused the government of pushing vulnerable people into asylum camps:

The Government has stated that in September 2020 it “committed to taking forwards an ambitious package of changes to strengthen and future-proof the Modern Slavery Act’s transparency legislation, including extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more, a global first.”

EachOther has approached the Home Office for comment.