To commemorate Anti-Slavery Day 2022, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), respective Chair and Secretariat of the Taskforce of Victims of Trafficking in Immigration Detention, reflect on the Government’s treatment of survivors of trafficking and modern slavery; the harm caused by immigration detention; and the steps needed to address a broken system and ensure survivors are protected and supported.

A recent Guardian investigation has found new evidence of migrant workers being saddled with debts to get jobs on British farms. This isn’t the first such story and it won’t be the last; FLEX has been warning since 2018 that high upfront costs for visas and travel, and insufficient safeguards against recruitment fees, would lead to dangerous levels of debt – and with it, risk of exploitation – for workers on the UK’s Seasonal Worker Visa. 

A new report based on research led by Nottingham Rights Lab in partnership with FLEX, the Institute of Public Care at Oxford Brookes University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has identified the factors that put live-in migrant carers at greater risk of exploitation and modern slavery.

FLEX is piloting a worker-informed human rights due diligence framework for service sector supply chains. This project will utilise meaningful worker-engagement methods to ensure that workers are at the front and centre in identifying risks and developing solutions to the issues that affect them. This will contribute to the efforts to prevent labour abuse and exploitation amongst outsourced workers in high-risk sectors.