Former Prime Minister Theresa May’s drive to “shine a light” on modern slavery has been the subject of government speeches and press releases for the better part of 10 years. This awareness drive has not only generated headlines, but also referrals as agencies have become mindful of trafficking indicators in their day-to-day work. First responders, such as the police, border forces, local authorities and charities, have steadily identified more and more victims: 5,468 more potential victims were identified in 2020 than in 2017. Just as May had hoped, the UK had started to draw the most extreme forms of exploitation out of the shadows.
Yet, seemingly overnight in March 2021, Boris Johnson’s administration chose to re-interpret growing awareness of slavery as an “alarming rise of abuse within the modern slavery system”. In fact, despite 86% of trafficking cases receiving a positive final decision in the first quarter of 2021 from the Home Office, the home secretary Priti Patel argued that “the law on modern slavery is being exploited”. The government later admitted, via a freedom of information request, that there was no evidence of system abuse, let alone a rise in abuse by “foreign national offenders” or “child rapists” as a Home Office press release had originally claimed.
Without the backing of a single survivor-led group, sweeping changes to survivor rights were proposed in order to make it much harder for victims to secure support, such as access to safe housing, caseworker advocacy, counselling, or legal help. These plans were not made accessible to those who spoke a language other than English or Welsh during the consultation, excluding survivors with language barriers from sharing the impact of these changes on their lives. The resultant Nationality and Borders Act comes into force this month, and will take away survivors’ guaranteed support. Decision makers will instead be granted new powers to prevent survivors from getting the help they need due to factors irrelevant to their case – such as the victims’ offending history or even the time it takes them to share evidence.
