The government, which introduced legislation banning modern slavery last year, thinks there may be up to 13,000 people held in modern slavery across the U.K. But many believe this is a serious underestimate.
You may be surprised to hear slavery still exists, thinking it has long been abolished, but the truth is it never went away. Traditional versions of slavery have morphed into forced prostitution, cannabis farming, and labor exploitation, which are now being seen in both “developing” and so-called “developed” countries.
Forced labor is one of the most common forms of modern slavery, and is found in many sectors across the U.K., including agriculture, food production, construction, fishing, and leisure and hospitality.
The issue of forced labor in the U.K. came to light more than 12 years ago, when 23 trafficked Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire. They were trapped by sweeping tides while working illegally, picking cockles for hours on end to send money back to their families. At the time, there was widespread outrage, that this type of modern slavery could be happening here, in the U.K. But if anything, more than a decade on from the tragedy, things are getting worse, not better with the latest government data suggesting that trafficking for labor exploitation is now more serious than trafficking for sexual exploitation. This pattern is repeated across many European countries.
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In the U.K., forced labor has been able to infiltrate the supply chain, because many companies providing labor don’t have a ready supply of people themselves and prefer to hire labor from agencies, however informal. Many make use of a network of labor agencies they can hire people from. And those companies which provide labor (known as labor suppliers or gangmasters) in turn may have smaller, more informal companies who can provide people to them, often at short notice.
At the end of these labor supply chains, criminal gangs can easily operate relatively undetected. These gangs prey on people’s desire to improve their situation, deceiving them about the prospects of safe, well paid work in other countries. This, combined with worker’s often inadequate grasp of English or knowledge of their rights, creates an environment where they are vulnerable to exploitation.
Because these gangs can move labor around cheaply and easily, vulnerable people can be transported across national borders. The gangs then force these people to work for them—withholding ID documents and threatening workers with violence—or sexual violence in the case of women whilst also making illegal deductions from wages and placing restrictions on workers’ mobility.
