On Friday 1st December, the Government confirmed it would not honour promises to ensure survivors of modern slavery could access support earlier, and for longer.
Our statement: After six year wait, the government has broken its promise to survivors of modern slavery
“The least survivors deserve is basic protection after making the difficult, and often life-threatening, step of reporting modern slavery and human trafficking. Yet, Friday’s anouncement confirms that the Government is no longer committed to protecting victims of modern slavery even in principle, and is breaking what modest promises they made to survivors after years of waiting.
The ‘places of safety’ scheme could have guaranteed that all victims get some temporary form of shelter and a caseworker to help them understand the legal steps ahead of them after reporting severe exploitation. In the years since this scheme was promised, thousands of victims have slipped through the cracks without a referral in part due to the lack of support on offer in the days after leaving exploitation. In the past three months on record, as many as 1,317 potential victims were identified by authorities but did not stay in contact with authorities.* Now, after a six year wait, the Government has claimed that “funding is unavailable to introduce and efficiently implement this new service”.
Meanwhile, a modest promise to provide 12 months’ minimum support to confirmed victims, who have jumped through all of the hoops put in place by Home Office staff, has now been broken. 12 months is nowhere near long enough to allow survivors to rebuild their lives after the horrors of modern slavery, including domestic servititude, sexual exploitation and labour abuse. Many have suffered physical pain and psychological harm. The idea that any survivor of this crime does not deserve 12 months of support flies in the face of both logic and compassion.”
*Source: Duty to Notify figure provided as part of the most recent NRM modern slavery statistics on record: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-july-to-september-2023/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-3-2023-july-to-september
We are also concerned by how this announcement was made, given the gravity of this decision. The changes were announced via a niche newsletter for professionals and members of the public following National Referral Mechanism reforms. The timing – on a quiet Friday, just before Parliamentary recess – makes it harder to civil society to hold Government to account for this serious U-turn.
After Exploitation 