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The role of the state, and national legislation in particular, is absolutely crucial to the ‘modern slavery’ debate. Indeed, the construction of the concept of ‘modern slavery’ is itself predominantly reliant on individual states as well as the international and regional organisations they constitute. National legislation and international legal conventions determine the conditions under which phenomena are discursively constructed as instances of ‘modern slavery’ and when they are not. Similarly, state authority and complicity determines whether the forced movement of a man across national borders by a group of racist, violent thugs, leading to his death is classed as deportation (and hence ‘acceptable’) or ‘human trafficking’ and a form of ‘modern slavery’. In sum, the social relations and practices classified as modern slavery exist in much the same way as they have existed historically and spatially, but their legal classification as crimes, ‘modern slavery’ or as entirely different phenomena is exclusively at the behest of the state. To put it rather crudely, without the agreement of the state and the laws it creates, ‘modern slavery’ cannot become a legal category, which is what the UK Modern Slavery Bill seeks to do.
With this in mind, modern abolitionists have long lobbied politicians and governments in an attempt to legitimise their own understanding of contemporary forms of slavery. Indeed, modern abolitionism appears to be one of the few spaces in which the oddest of bedfellows manage to find common-ground: left and right wing politicians, corporate institutions, ethical consumer groups, human rights activists, academics, and actors from what has been classed as the ‘rescue industry’. These actors are united in their demands for states to enact or enforce legislation that prevents ‘modern slavery,’ and to pursue and punish those deemed to be contributing to the phenomenon.
