“Whose reality counts?” the author and professor of development Robert Chambers once asked. His reflections on participation should be incorporated into all areas of public policy. This past Tuesday the UK Modern Slavery Act turned four. When we consider what has been achieved, we must ask that question again: whose reality counts?
The carers, construction workers, fishers, cleaners, and the couriers, the outsourced and gig economy workers hold the key to understanding whether the UK can ever hope to ‘lead the world’ in its efforts to combat ‘modern slavery’. Yet whilst the UK National Audit Office estimates the government has spent “in excess of £100 million” to date on its modern slavery response, very little if any of this huge sum has been used to engage with those who have direct experience of navigating the risks of exploitation in the UK labour market. As the UK response to ‘modern slavery’ comes under intense scrutiny, and as parliamentarians, government agencies and experts ask why so little has been achieved, it has never been more important to flip the model on its head and put the voices and views of workers first.
Deliberately looking the other way
During the passage of the Modern Slavery Act through parliament, politicians across political divides invoked the spirit of William Wilberforce. The Conservative MP Tracy Crouch rallied the chamber by saying, “With Wilberforce’s legacy in mind, we as a nation should be taking the lead across Europe and the rest of the world.” It is significant that Wilberforce’s brand of abolitionism was regularly invoked in order to further the ‘modern slavery’ agenda. The common thread between Wilberforce’s views and the approach adopted by the government to ‘modern slavery’ is a singular focus on what the abolitionists want, whilst overlooking the needs and desires of those on whose behalf the laws and policies are written. Wilberforce’s “reservations about the capacity of enslaved Africans and their descendants to exercise freedom” and his view of trade unions as a “general disease in our society” show how deeply he considered the divide between himself and those he sought to emancipate.
