Slavery in The 21st Century

Criticism of the bill
Experts in the issue were skeptical of the bill, believing that it had many shortcomings.
Parosha Chandran, a human rights barrister and United Nations expert on trafficking,
claimed that "the bill is very poor on victim protection". Anthony Steen, who advised on
the legislation and chairs the Human Trafficking Foundation, claimed that the bill failed
to focus on the needs of victims of trafficking in the UK. “The bill is wholly and
exclusively about law enforcement – but it shouldn’t be enforcement-based, it should be
victim-based", he said.
Human rights group Liberty argued that the bill should have:
Addressed abuses associated with the Domestic Overseas Worker Visa which
prohibits individuals from changing their employer
Addressed the conflict of interest arising from UK Visas and Immigration being
involved with the National Referral Mechanism which is used to identify trafficking
victims and which acts as a gateway to support
Extended legal aid to slavery victims in civil matters
Implementation of the act
One of the aims of the Home Affairs Select Committee's inquiry into prostitution
legislation, which began in January 2016, was to examine the impact that the act had
had on trafficking for the purposes of prostitution and whether further measures were
needed to help those involved in prostitution to leave it. Submissions to the inquiry
published in June 2016 said that there had been 1,139 victims of trafficking for sexual
exploitation in 2014.
A review of the act in 2016 found that 289 offences were prosecuted under the act in
2015, and that there had been a 40% rise in the number of victims referred for support.
In July 2016 the Anti-Slavery Commissioner suggested that the number of crimes being
reported and investigated under the act was falling short of the real number of cases of
human trafficking and modern slavery. In the same month prime minister Theresa May
announced additional measures to assist the implementation of the act:
The creation of a task force to coordinate government action
A budget allocation of £33.5 million
An assessment of consistency in police approach by Her Majesty's Inspectorate
of Constabulary
In 2017, figures published by the National Crime Agency indicated that there were over
300 current police operations investigating possible violations of the act, and that a total
of 3,805 people had been reported as potential victims in 2016. In September 2017
alone, nine people were jailed for offences under the act.
Page 112 of 161