Slavery resources

This briefing aims to give an updated overview on the situation of non-statutory First Responders in their ability to refer potential survivors of modern slavery into the NRM in the 6 months between December 2023 and June 2024. The analysis has found an ongoing capacity issue affecting non-statutory First Responders, which are under considerable pressure. This is having detrimental consequences on survivors of trafficking and modern slavery, who are experiencing delays to access identification, support and protection.

To fulfil its commitment to eliminate forced labour from global value chains, the UK must introduce
import controls on products tainted with forced labour. Anti-Slavery International calls on the UK
Government to introduce primary legislation to ban the import of goods tainted with forced
labour. The ban should cover products made (in whole or in part) or transported using forced
labour. This briefing document outlines the rationale behind this call, as well as the elements that the
proposed law must include.

Anti-Slavery International is campaigning alongside the Corporate Justice Coalition and other organisations to make the case for a new Business Human Rights and Environment Act (BHRE).

We have published a policy paper with an overview of the rationale behind our legislative call. We outline the UK’s current lack of mechanisms to hold companies accountable for a failure to prevent abuses, the need to level the playing field between businesses, as well as the urgency for guaranteeing access to justice for victims of corporate abuses. We also provide a series of recommendations to ensure the UK plays its part in addressing forced labour in value chains. This includes both the principal elements of the BHRE Act and a wider mix of additional measures.

Note this policy paper was updated in July 2024.

Today, UN experts expressed alarm at the UK Government’s use of unevidenced claims and sensationalist language towards survivors of trafficking and modern slavery, stating these attacks on the credibility of survivors and their legal representatives have a “chilling effect.” Following this release, twenty one anti-slavery organisations have released a statement calling on the Government to end its roll-back of rights and protection for survivors, and recommit to support, assistance and safeguarding for all victims of this grave crime.

Anti-Slavery International. The brief provides parliamentarians with an overview of the relationship between human trafficking and online safety and outlines concerns and recommendations relating to the Bill.

Download the briefing:

Research and analysis from the anti-trafficking sector has demonstrated the considerable shortcomings within the UK’s anti-trafficking framework, failing victims and survivors of trafficking.

The UK government has tended to view trafficking and modern slavery as a discrete form of abuse rather than existing at the extreme end of a continuum of exploitation. Working conditions must be improved generally to avoid situations degrading to the stage where they amount to human trafficking. Strengthening the labour market enforcement can help to embed a model based on proactive protection rather than simply redress once a situation has degraded to a sufficient level of severity.

This joint submission looks at the impacts of the UK’s immigration enforcement-centred approach, current obstacles in the identification and protection of victims of trafficking and modern slavery and provides a series of recommendations.

“One day at a time” looks at the experience of the Recovery Needs Assessment (RNA) process. It charters the first-hand experiences of, not only those on the receiving end of support, but also the experiences of Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC) support providers, along with, support workers outside of the MSVCC.

Anti-Slavery International, Dignity at Work, Focus on Labour Exploitation, Kalayaan, Kanlungan, and The Voice of Domestic Workers.

Migrant domestic workers in the UK – the majority of whom are women – continue to suffer from widespread abuse and exploitation, including situations of trafficking and modern slavery. The Overseas Domestic Worker visa increases vulnerability to exploitation as it restricts migrant domestic workers to a non-renewable six-month visa. While there are mechanisms in place to identify and provide support to victims of trafficking and modern slavery in the UK, these only apply to migrant domestic workers whose treatment amounts to the legal definition of trafficking and modern slavery. Ahead of the 2022 Universal Periodic Review of the UK, Anti-Slavery International, along with other organisations, submitted evidence relating to migrant domestic workers in the UK.

Joint Submission for the the Universal Periodic Review of the UK:

Migrant domestic workers in the UK, the majority of whom are women that live in their employer’s household, continue to suffer from widespread abuse and exploitation, including situations of trafficking and modern slavery

This is a joint submission by Anti-Slavery International, Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), Kalayaan, Kanlungan Filipino Consortium, and the Voice of Domestic Workers. The submission focuses on abuse and exploitation, including trafficking and modern slavery, of migrant domestic workers in the UK.

The Overseas Domestic Worker visa increases vulnerability to exploitation because it restricts migrant domestic workers to a non-renewable six-month visa, against the recommendations of an independent review commissioned by the Government itself3. The inability to renew the visa renders the right to change employer inaccessible in practice and leaves migrant domestic workers to face abuse and exploitation with no escape route. It also obstructs access to justice and remedy when abuse occurs. New protections for migrant domestic workers announced by the Government in 2016 have either been dropped altogether or are not being implemented in practice.

A coalition of civil society organisations is calling for the introduction a new UK ‘mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence’ law, based on the duties to prevent tax evasion and bribery found in the Criminal Finances Act 2017 and the Bribery Act 2010 – as called for by the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, and found to be legally feasible by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

These principles for a new law have been prepared by UK civil society organisations who are working to strengthen corporate accountability for human rights abuses, including modern slavery, and environmental damage. It provides an overview of the principle elements needed in such new legislation.

The principles are endorsed by over 30 individual UK organisations, including Anti-Slavery International.