The hidden scourge of modern slavery

a post by Gary Craig published by on the Transforming Society blog (16 March 2020)

If you stopped someone on the street ten years ago and asked them what came to mind when you mentioned the word slavery, the chances are they would say William Wilberforce, something to do with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, or perhaps refer to exploitation in countries thousands of miles away.

Although many people believe that slavery was abolished two hundred years ago, the truth is that it never went away, but morphed into other forms. The traditional images of slavery – of black slaves working in chains on sugar and cotton plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas – are now replaced by a variety of forms of modern slavery. There are now estimated to be 40 million people worldwide in forms of slavery. Compare that with the Transatlantic Slave Trade when about 14 million people were enslaved over a 200-year period and you can see how prevalent it is now.

Estimates suggest there may be tens of thousands or more people enslaved in the UK. To make this figure feel real, that would be about 600-700 people in forms of direct slavery in a large city or a county. In 2018, almost 7,000 people presented themselves to the official source of help, the National Referral Mechanism, now run by the Home Office. It is widely agreed that this is just the tip of the iceberg and this number is increasing significantly every year. The number may be close to 10,000 for 2019. Many victims of slavery won’t report their situation to the NRM, however, because they fear either being retrafficked or being deported.

Continue reading

Labels:
slavery, modern_slavery, National_Referral_Mechanism,

---