Modern slavery experts have blamed the government’s controversial new borders law for a sharp drop in the number of potential victims being offered protection.
Just 58% of initial decisions by the Home Office’s modern slavery protection system, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), were successful in the first quarter of 2023 according to figures released this month. A year ago, the figure was 89%.
Similarly, the number of positive final decisions, made later on in the process, has dropped from 92% in early 2022 to 75% in early 2023. These are the highest rejection rates from the NRM since at least 2014, the furthest back the available data goes.
