Modern slavery

According to slavery experts, more than 100,000 people in the UK are currently coerced within modern slavery; it is important that we increase our awareness of this crime. Please share the below information regarding Modern Slavery with your NHW members, local community, friends and family.

Modern slavery is a serious crime. Victims are:

• exploited
• controlled or held captive
• threatened or punished to stop them escaping or reporting the crime

Anyone can be a target for modern slavery. But some people can be at more risk because of money, social or health issues, or because of their age or immigration status.

Threats and punishments can often be violent, but not always. They can include threatening to tell the authorities about the victim's immigration status in order to get them deported from the country.

Modern slavery includes human trafficking. This is when victims are taken between countries or around a country so they can be exploited.

Find out more about human trafficking

How criminals exploit their victims

Forced labour

Forced labour is when victims are threatened or physically forced into working in someone's home or business. Criminals might also trick their victims by promising real work in another place or country, then forcing them into slavery once they arrive.

Even if a victim seemingly agrees to the work, we can still prosecute if the work and conditions aren't acceptable. Nobody can agree to being exploited.

Victims can work very long hours for little or no pay. They are often kept and work in terrible conditions. But it is still modern slavery if the victim is kept in decent conditions, but is not free to leave or live their lives as they want. 

Victims can be forced to do any kind of commercial work. Common examples include:

• on a fishing boat
• in fields
• as a builder
• in a hotel
• in a factory
• as a cleaner in an office or shop

But they can also be forced to work in people's homes, cooking and cleaning as domestic slaves.

Criminal exploitation

Criminal exploitation is when victims are made to commit crimes like:

• shoplifting
• pickpocketing
• stealing fuel from cars
• benefit fraud

Drugs

Some victims in the drug trade are forced to work as cannabis growers. Others are used to distribute or sell drugs. 

County lines is one form of criminal exploitation. This is where vulnerable people, often children, are used to carry drugs from cities to sell them in nearby towns and the countryside.

Find out more about county lines

Sexual exploitation

Victims are forced into sex work or to perform sexual acts against their wishes and without their consent. This includes escort work, pornography or making indecent images of children.

Most victims of sexual exploitation are women and children, but men can also be affected.

Organ trafficking

Victims are moved from one place to another so they can have their body parts removed. These are then sold for surgical transplants. Body parts include tissues and organs, for example, kidneys.

Spotting modern slavery

Modern slavery can happen anywhere in any situation. Each case is different, and may not fit the stereotype of groups of people being forced to work in fields or on fishing boats.

The signs of forced labour, and criminal or sexual exploitation can be very different. Victims might look helpless and afraid, but they can also seem to accept their situation, be completely unaware of it, or even defend the people who are exploiting them.

Signs of a potential victim of modern slavery may include:

• They seem malnourished and tired
• If from overseas, they don’t speak much English
• They wear unsuitable clothes for the work, or for the weather
• They appear to be under the control of someone else and reluctant to interact with others
• They are reluctant to make eye contact or talk to people
• They work excessively long hours and seldom, if ever, have days off
• They appear fearful, uneasy, or anxious and distrustful of authorities
• They have untreated injuries
• They allow others to answer questions put to them
• They are confined to their workplace and there may be signs that they also sleep there

Signs someone you know or speak to frequently may be a victim of modern slavery may include:

• They always appear scruffy and unwashed
• They lack personal possessions
• They are frequently dropped off or picked up at unsociable hours
• They don’t know their home or work address
• They have limited social contact or contact with their family
• They never seem to have any or much money, despite working long hours
• They don’t have possession of their passport, driving licence or other identification documents
• You perceive that they are in debt to their boss or someone else
• If female, she has an unwanted or underage pregnancy
• They offer incoherent or changing accounts of events
• They repeat a story that you have heard elsewhere–as if they and others have been instructed to learn it

Signs that a house, flat or other dwelling could be a base for modern slavery

• The property seems too small for the numbers of people that live there
• People appear to be bundled in and out of the property by others, often during darkness
• There are bars on the windows and/or the curtains are permanently drawn or boarded up
• Large numbers of young women have suddenly been moved into the property, which then receives lots of visitors day and night
• The letterbox has been sealed over
• There is CCTV at the entrance to the property
• The pungent smell coming from the property
• Electricity is being re-routed from neighbouring properties or directly from power lines

None of these indicators in isolation or combination can give you complete certainty, sometimes it will be a case of acting on your instinct that something is not right. You do not need to be absolutely certain in order to report your concerns.