"Inexcusable" lack of support for modern slavery victims allows gangmasters to go free say MPs
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In a report published today, Sunday 30 May 2017, the Work and
Pensions Committee says failures in the UK’s system for dealing
with modern slavery are allowing the “inexcusable” scenario of
victims reduced to destitution while their abusers go free because
they are not adequately supported to testify against them.
Front line support is weak and uncoordinated and instances
where a person is re-trafficked are not even recorded. This helps
to explain the...Request free trial
In a report published today, Sunday 30 May 2017, the Work and Pensions Committee says failures in the UK’s system for dealing with modern slavery are allowing the “inexcusable” scenario of victims reduced to destitution while their abusers go free because they are not adequately supported to testify against them.
Front line support is weak and uncoordinated and instances where a person is re-trafficked are not even recorded. This helps to explain the country’s appalling conviction record.
It is estimated there are between 10,000 and 13,000 slaves - victims of modern slavery - in the UK, but the current mechanism for identifying and supporting them out of slavery means that victims, once identified, have no automatic formal immigration status or rights and are often faced with a total lack of understanding or even recognition of their situation.
The Committee heard testimony of one victim, Client M, who “escaped from his traffickers but it took four years before someone recognised that he was a potential victim of modern slavery … the adviser in the Jobcentre [who knew his story] did not pick up on that … he lost four years before someone finally offered him the help and pointed him where he should go further”.
The Committee heard direct, private evidence of frontline staff totally unprepared to deal with victims of modern slavery. One woman recounted how, when trying to obtain a National Insurance Number, her account of her situation was greeted by her the adviser saying, clearly audibly through the room: ”Oh my God, you were trafficked. Oh my God, I’ve only seen that on the television.”
The inquiry was instigated at the request of the UK’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, who wrote to the Committee expressing his concerns that the support on offer to someone conclusively determined to be a victim of modern slavery is “inadequate”, while Baroness Butler-Sloss has said that the outcome of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) process is “nothing but a piece of paper” to victims.
The Committee says:
Frank Field MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “While we applaud the leading role the UK has taken in tackling this “barbaric crime”, as the Prime Minister has called it, when you consider what is at stake, there is a shocking lack of awareness and co-ordination in the front line services dealing with modern slavery. What these people go through is unimaginable, and yet it is happening, here, now, and our response seems almost lackadaisical: a paper exercise earning you recognition as having been enslaved, which then entitles you to almost nothing as far as we can see. We don’t even record instances where the same person is thrown back into this hell, even though that is surely the clearest sign of the failures in our response.
“No society worth its salt can allow this to continue, or fail to support those who fall victim. The Prime Minister now needs to open up a further front in her Modern Slavery Act. The incoming Government must conduct an urgent review of our national response and put in place some basic minimum safeguards, status, that will allow a person to begin to rebuild a life, testify against their abuser if they feel able, and above all, be protected from the unimaginable but real possibility of falling victim again.” Notes:
Full inquiry details and evidence: Victims of modern slavery
Correspondence with the Prime Minister on this issue:
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