FLEX is the co-chair of the Modern Slavery Strategy Implementation Group: Task and Finish Sub-Group on Prevention ('MSSIG Prevent'). This is a stakeholder body which advises government on prevention policy and activity. In its September member meeting, the MSSIG Prevent discussed the issue of exploitation of migrant domestic workers who enter the UK on the 'Overseas Domestic Workers' visa. Several members raised concerns about the perceived contradiction between this visa and the government's stated aims regarding the eradication of modern slavery and have now published a statement to that effect.

FLEX CEO statement on the 39 deaths identified at Grays, Essex today.

By Avril Sharp of Kalayaan

Imagine. You make the heart wrenching decision to leave your loved ones and migrate abroad for work. You leave behind everything and everyone you know in the hope you can earn a decent wage and provide for your family, your children, your spouse, your elderly parents. You hope you can pay for their education, their health needs, rent, and food for them to eat. You arrive in a foreign land. The conditions are not what you were told you would be working in.

In a guest blog for FLEX, Hannah Wilson and Aintzane Marquez from Women’s Link Worldwide write about the human rights violations experienced by Moroccan women migrant workers picking strawberries in Spain. Circular migration, also known as temporary migration, is meant to be a tripple win for workers, their country of origin and their host country. Yet, economic profit is often put before the human rights of workers by both states and businesses. Understanding what is happening to migrant workers in Spain is crucial for the UK, where the Government has proposed temporary migration schemes similar to the Morocco-Spain arrangement as part of its post-Brexit immigration plans.