As a Member of Parliament representing a Port constituency I am acutely aware of modern slavery – the ruthless exploitation of our fellow human beings is happening before our very eyes in all our communities. Countless people moved in and around for brutal exploitation all taking place in plain sight.
Last year’s shocking discovery of 39 people found dead in the back of a lorry in West Thurrock put the inhumanity of this crime centre stage. But what is the true scale of this crime? Government estimates put the figure at between 10,000 and 13,000 victims.
Yet a new report by the think tank the Centre for Social Justice and the anti-slavery charity Justice and Care says there are likely to be more than 100,000 victims in the UK, based on new analysis of police data. This means less than one in ten is being discovered.
These aren’t just numbers. These are individual people with hopes and dreams. People like 19-year old Ileana, from a broken family in Romania. Ileana was easy prey for traffickers. She was taken to Essex, raped in brothels and fed cocaine to keep working into the night. She lived in fear of her life.
But let’s not kid ourselves that this is only something happens to immigrants. A growing number of British nationals are being enslaved too.
The report found evidence of slavery across the country, ruining people’s lives and costing the taxpayer. In Birmingham, for example, they heard traffickers were stealing the identities of their victims and claiming benefits on their behalf – fraud on an industrial level, costing the nation billions.
Police officers in Essex tell us that slavery is not just confined to the car washes, nail bars and cannabis farms, but is everywhere. It is big business. Criminals have switched from smuggling drugs and alcohol to people because it is less risky and more profitable.
Slavery is not just confined to the history books – it is a crisis today, affecting every town and city around the country. It is vile. And our generation has a choice: to look the other way or to invest the time and resources needed to combat it. None of us should be looking the other way. This is a fight we must take on and win.
How? We must improve the care we offer those who have been rescued from slavery. And we must bring many more criminals to justice.
We need to support those who have been abused on British soil more effectively – this is morally right but also vital in the fight against the slavemasters. Without proper care, victims are reluctant to help police investigations or are re-trafficked, so we lose the vital intelligence to bring their traffickers to justice.
In this regard the report identifies innovative partnerships between charities and police helping investigators engage with victims. It calls on MPs to introduce new support for survivors and front- line workers. It calls to back the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill and consider new safeguarding powers. It also says more foreign national victims can be helped home.
The report also demonstrates how the public can play a role in raising concerns, and the help they need to do so. It highlights the need to tackle the linked benefit fraud and the way businesses avoid rooting out slavery in their supply chains, through proper penalties and scrutiny. There is more.
We have made real progress fighting slavery but the job is not done. We can lead the way now as we once did in ridding the world of this brutal crime. So let us unite to confine slavery to the history books once and for all.
Jackie Doyle-Price is the MP for Thurrock.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) is a leading independent think tank. It has joined with anti-slavery charity Justice & Care to publish a review of modern slavery in the UK. It Still Happens Here builds on the 2013 CSJ report, It Happens Here, which led to the historic Modern Slavery Act 2015.
It Still Happens Here – Executive Summary
Read the full report: It Still Happens Here, or read on the Justice & Care website
