The UK’s Centre for Social Justice has called on the government for a “radical overhaul” of measures to combat slavery, claiming the “ministers are clueless” about the current scale of slavery and human trafficking in the country.
Over 1,000 trafficking victims were detected in 2012, a
staggering number of them British children, according to the CSJ’s
latest report. An investigation, entitled ‘It Happens Here’,
features a range of cases where both adults and children are
trafficked into and within the UK to be subjected to various forms
of forced labor, from sexual exploitation to forced
criminality.
"Our research has uncovered a shocking underworld in which
children and adults, many of them UK citizens, have been forced
into lives of utter degradation,” the managing director of the
CSJ, an independent think-tank established to tackle social issues
in the UK, revealed.
Christian Guy noted that the latest figures are said to represent
only the tip of the iceberg, due to a “shambolic identification
system”.
"Yet the authorities are either failing to understand the nature
of this abuse or turning a blind eye to its existence. Our once
great nation of abolitionists is a shameful shadow of its former
self,” he said.
Meanwhile, British girls trafficked for sexual exploitation in 2011
made up nearly one half of all UK slavery victims, according to the
study. One incident reportedly involved a girl who was raped by 90
men in the course of one weekend.
“We have allowed human beings in the UK to be bought and sold as
mere commodities for profit, gain or gratification. How on earth
have we arrived at a place where there is no ambition or leadership
to stamp out this appalling crime?” CEO of
anti-human-trafficking charity Unseen, Andrew Wallis, who also
worked on the report, said.
The researchers have urged politicians in the UK to develop
effective measures aimed at protecting victims of human
trafficking. They suggest that the responsibility for fighting
slavery should be switched to the Ministry of Policing and Criminal
Justice and away from the Ministry of Immigration. It’s hoped the
move could help make it clear that human trafficking is first and
foremost a criminal matter, not one of higher immigration control.
Appointment of an anti-slavery commissioner, modeled on the
existing children's commissioner, is among the proposed
measures.
In the report the CSJ cited a case where a woman was arrested as an
illegal immigrant after she managed to escape from a brothel where
she was enslaved, and fled to a police station.
To encourage victims to report abuse and seek help from welfare
agencies without facing the threat of criminal prosecution, the UK
Border Agency should be stripped of its lead role in ruling on
suspected cases of human trafficking and a new Modern Slavery Act
introduced by parliament to bring all human trafficking and slavery
offences together, the CSJ study proposed.