What is Modern Slavery?

Vulnerable people, overwhelmingly women and girls, are tricked or forced into the sex trade. It often begins with a promise of good work in hospitality or modelling, or a ‘boyfriend’ is responsible.

This is when a person has no choice or control over their work, with the money they earn taken by someone else, who often also controls where they live and even who they can speak with.

A less common type of modern slavery, when a person is forced to cook, clean or do childcare for little or no pay, often living in the home with the ’employer’ and not allowed to live their own life.

Victims are forced to grow or transport drugs, made to shoplift or pickpocket, are forced to beg on the streets, or used for fraud. The threat of being reported becomes another method of control.

Nearly 22 million people are thought to have been forced into a marriage without consent, nearly all of them women and girls, often to an older man in another region or country.

Source: A Typology of Modern Slavery Offences in the UK (Home Office, 2017), which breaks down these categories further into 17 total types

Modern slavery is an internationally recognised umbrella term covering all forms of slavery, servitude, human trafficking and related exploitation, including forced labour, debt bondage, forced child labour, forced marriage, and commercial sexual exploitation. In some countries, including the UK, the term has a specific meaning in criminal law, while in other countries it is used in a more general sense or not used at all. In certain countries, particularly the U.S and parts of Africa, the term ‘slavery’ has a strong emotional and historical connection to the racist enslavement of African people and many people choose to avoid using this word outside of that specific context.  

Under international conventions, human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Many countries have their own specific definitions under domestic criminal law that fall outside of this definition. For example, in the United States, when a person younger than 18 is encouraged to perform a commercial sex act, that is a trafficking crime, regardless of any other factors usually necessary for something to be categorized as trafficking. In general usage, human trafficking is often used interchangeably with the term modern slavery (especially in the UK) – but in law the two concepts remain distinct.

It is a hidden crime, but the best estimates suggest there are 49.6 million people^[8] in modern slavery of which:

There are tens of thousands of victims in the UK. One estimate suggests the number of people in modern slavery in the UK is up to 122,000.^[9]

People are tricked or forced into exploitation and kept there through violence, fraud or coercion, and often end up living and working in abominable conditions.

Some are beaten and abused; others have threats made against their families in their home countries. Many are forced into fraudulent ‘debt bondage’, with their wages kept by a trafficker to pay non-existent bills for their travel, accommodation or food. They are told they will be deported if they go to the authorities.

Often, the trafficker takes control of a victim’s identity documents (e.g. passport). They accompany them to open a bank account, then take control of its associated bank card and correspondence (this functions both as a simple way for the trafficker to control the victim’s earnings, and a way for them to exert dominance and control by offering occasional small sums of money from what should be the victim’s own wages).

Traffickers usually focus on those easiest to exploit, which tends to be people with fewer resources or existing vulnerabilities.

Source: Hope for Justice case analysis

Anyone from any walk of life can be targeted and can end up as a victim of modern slavery. But people experiencing any of the following things can be at particular risk:

Source: Hope for Justice case analysis

The relationship between someone experiencing modern slavery and the person or group controlling them is complex. It is rare for the control to be based on physical confinement like locked doors or shackles. Instead, victims are exploited through manipulation, fear, dependency, threats or debt bondage.

This means that during the time they are actually in exploitation, few people think of themselves as being a ‘victim’. They often describe feeling hopeless or having no options, or even feel a sense of obligation towards those who trafficked them. They do not understand their situation as being one that they could run away from or escape from.

For many, it is only once they get long-term help from a specialist organisation like Hope for Justice that they understand the extent of the exploitation and that a different life is possible, with the right support.

Source: Hope for Justice case analysis