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13,000 trafficked workers may be working as slaves across UK (1 December 2014)

Date: 01/12/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, 13,000 trafficked workers may be working as slaves across UK

Latest figures from the government’s National Crime Agency’s Human Trafficking Centre estimate that there are around 10,000 to 13,000 people working as modern-day slaves in the UK, having been trafficked into Britain.

Human traffickers often recruit vulnerable men and women from EU or other countries with struggling economies, tricking them into believing they will be working in legitimate employment in the UK. Many end up as modern-day slaves working in work in prostitution, factories, agriculture and fishing, as well as in domestic service or as labourers.

The government is working with the EU and the governments of other countries to address the root causes of people who are trafficked and end up working as slave labour in the UK. Churches and other organisations are also becoming involved in spotting those who might have been trafficked into Britain.

Many people who are trafficked believe they are coming to a better life – and will be able to work and send money home to their family, but often this dream does not materialise.

Accommodation is often provided for slave workers, but the cost of this is deducted from wages, leaving the worker with little or no money to survive on independently. People who are trafficked are often bonded slaves and are working to pay off the cost of being trafficked to the UK by a gang.

In July 2014, a gang operating in London which trafficked 120 vulnerable women mainly from Hungary into the sex trade in the UK was jailed – many of the women were promised jobs in administration or as cleaners and nannies in the UK, but ended up being raped and forced into prostitution in brothels across London. Croydon Crown Court jailed the gang for a total of 36 years.

Vulnerable people in the UK have also been targeted by modern-day slavery gangs and made to work as bonded slaves – in 2012, a traveller gang was jailed for 20 years for keeping a private “army” of slave workers recruited in the UK to work as labourers and handymen. The Connor family recruited “drifters” they met and paid them £5 a day. The workers lived in squalid conditions, were pacified with cannabis and were beaten, Bristol Crown Court heard.

A report last week also suggested that many gangs use webcams to monitor slave workers and make sure they keep appointments, especially in the sex industry in Britain.

Last year the Home Office estimated there were 2,744 modern-day slaves in the UK – but the latest estimate shows the problem to be more widespread. The Modern Slavery Bill is currently passing through Parliament to tackle the issues and give the judicial system more powers to protect the victims of human trafficking and modern-day slaves being held against their will by gang bosses.

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