By the time Ella arrived in the UK, she had been trafficked and sexually abused multiple times in multiple countries. She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, and had significant difficulties knowing who she could trust.
A decade ago, Ella was forcibly conscripted into military service in Eritrea as a young woman, escaping only when a relative helped her flee to Sudan while she was receiving medical treatment. There, an agent arranged work for her as a housekeeper, caring for children. But she was never allowed out alone and was not paid. She was later moved to another house where other young women “like her” were being held. The agent and his men repeatedly sexually assaulted her.
After several months, Ella escaped with the help of a man she had befriended and travelled to Libya. At the Libyan border, she was detained by police and imprisoned for seven months, where the guards physically and sexually assaulted her. After escaping prison, she was forced to work unpaid as a housekeeper for two months to cover the costs of onward travel. She later travelled to Italy and then to the UK.
It was here in the UK that Ella was referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the official system for identifying and supporting survivors of human trafficking. This was a turning point; her relationship with her NRM support worker was key to her beginning to feel safe again.
After being formally recognised as a victim of trafficking, she was granted two and a half years’ leave to remain in the UK. We at the Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF), a human rights charity supporting survivors of trafficking, torture and extreme human cruelty, were then able to provide her with trauma-focused therapy.
Ella is one of many non-British survivors we support at HBF who were trafficked across borders and exploited before reaching the UK. Last year, 81% of non-British nationals formally recognised as victims of trafficking were exploited overseas, with just over a quarter of them also exploited in the UK. More than four in five survivors supported by us at HBF in 2025 were exploited abroad; many endured extreme abuse in their countries of origin and along dangerous journeys to the UK.
At its best, as Ella’s story shows, the NRM can be a lifeline. It allows survivors to be identified, believed and connected to the services they need to stay safe and begin their recovery, including financial support and housing. It creates space for professionals to bear witness to traumatic experiences and to collaborate across sectors to provide complex, trauma-informed support. We see this in our work every day.
Yet the government has said the NRM is being misused and must change. Home secretary Shabana Mahmood accused people of using it to make “vexatious, last-minute challenges” to prevent their removal from the UK after the High Court blocked the deportation to France of an Eritrean man who said he was a victim of trafficking in September. Months later, a government source reportedly told The Times that protections for victims of trafficking were not designed for people who were exploited “years and years ago in their home country”.
A recent government consultation on the identification of victims of trafficking and modern slavery proposed separate systems for identifying and supporting those exploited abroad from those exploited within the UK. Creating a two-tier system of protection, in which survivors are treated differently based solely on where their exploitation happened, would risk many not getting the help they need. It is deeply disconnected from the reality of human trafficking. The government has not yet made clear what changes it will implement from the report’s recommendations.
Trafficking is rarely confined to a single country, as we show in our latest report, Risk Has No Country. Exploitation is often transnational, unfolding across multiple countries over many years. Survivors we support have been trafficked and exploited in Libya, Sudan, Albania, Vietnam and beyond, experiencing forced labour, sexual violence, detention, extortion and severe psychological harm.
These experiences do not stop at the UK border. Trauma and insecurity travel with survivors. Without adequate support, the risk of re-exploitation is high, particularly for those arriving already traumatised, isolated and fearful of authority. Phe, another HBF client, a Vietnamese woman trafficked to China and then the UK for sexual exploitation, escaped her traffickers only to be left without secure and safe accommodation. While homeless in London, she sought help from people on the street. A family offered her a place to stay, but instead exploited her through domestic servitude.
Dividing survivors into categories based on where exploitation occurred not only increases the risk of further harm but also undermines the UK’s legal obligations under international human rights law. It could deny thousands of people the protection they need, simply because their abuse began somewhere else.
“Trafficking is trafficking,” says Hana, another survivor supported by HBF. “Changing the system to create lower standards for people exploited outside the UK would ruin lives.”
This government and its recent predecessors have too often framed protections for trafficking survivors as an obstacle to immigration enforcement, rather than a vital response to serious crime. It has deliberately been made harder to access support through changes to the law and policy. Thousands of survivors already choose not to enter the NRM at all because they fear detention or removal. Even those who are referred are too often left without the stability they need to recover and rebuild their lives.
If the UK is serious about tackling human trafficking and modern slavery, as Home Office minister Jess Philips has said it is, it must recognise that exploitation is complex, transnational and long-lasting, and that recovery takes time.
The government must maintain equal standards of protection for all survivors of trafficking, regardless of where their exploitation occurred. It must actively monitor and reduce the risk of re-exploitation, and introduce practical improvements to survivor support, including better vulnerability screening, trauma-informed decision-making, long-term safe accommodation, and automatic leave to remain for all recognised survivors.
Ella’s story is not an exception. Trafficking has no borders, and neither should protection.
*Names in this piece have been changed
Kamena Dorling is director of policy at Helen Bamber Foundation, a specialist clinical and human rights charity that works with survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of extreme human cruelty and believes all survivors should have safety, freedom and power.
