Annual Review 2023

I am incredibly proud that the work of Hope for Justice reached more people than ever before this year, and there is no doubt that our efforts are needed more than ever.

There are over 200,000 people whose lives have been touched in some way by our work in just 12 months. Among them: a young girl, sold by her family and trafficked for sex but now safe at our Lighthouse; a male survivor of forced labour who finally feels stable and supported enough to give evidence against his abusers; a police officer whose understanding of modern slavery was very shallow, until our specialist training; a mother in a poor, rural village who had been close to believing a broker’s promises about a ‘good job’ for her children, until she attended one of our community trafficking prevention initiatives and realised that instead her children would almost certainly be sold into brothels, street-begging or domestic servitude; a teenage boy who thought he had made a friend on a gaming app, but the person behind the profile was 30 years older and a convicted kidnapper. I could go on, with 200,000 more examples.

Our work reached all these people at a time when we have been seeing the continuing fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the associated crisis of displaced, vulnerable people and the gangs targeting them. The after-effects of the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns continued to have an impact, especially in certain countries where we work. We have had to adapt some of our programmes because of the impact of rising costs, financial pressures on donors, and shifting strategic priorities. This has been difficult: we are seeing urgent need, and we want to be expanding our programmes to meet that need.

Around the world, there have been some real positives in terms of public, government and business awareness and action on this issue. Many more businesses became members or clients of Slave-Free Alliance, our social enterprise that stands alongside organisations to help them mitigate risks and protect their supply chains, which ultimately protects vulnerable workers from being trafficked and exploited.

Ending human trafficking for good is going to take us all, coming together with a single purpose and with a belief that change is possible. Thank you for being with us.

Tim Nelson
CEO, Hope for Justice