Human trafficking and modern day slavery

Modern slavery is an umbrella term which encompasses human trafficking and slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour.

The legislative framework for modern slavery is derived from international and domestic law.

The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) is a UK-wide framework for identifying and referring potential victims of modern slavery and ensuring they receive the appropriate support.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS): “The hidden nature of modern slavery makes producing an accurate prevalence measure difficult”. Therefore, there is no one data source that accurately quantifies the number of victims in the UK. Data for the UK NRM is given below. The ONS said that this is the “best measure of potential victims, although [it] is known to be an undercount”.

According to the Home Office’s statistics on referrals to the NRM, there were 16,938 NRM referrals in 2022. This is a 33% increase from 2021 (12,706 referrals). Of this:

• 8,854 were potential victims who claimed exploitation as adults (52%)
  • 6,874 were male (78%)
  • 1,978 were female (22%)
• 7,019 were children (41%)
  • 5,607 were male (80%)
  • 1,401 were female (20%)

Broadly, stakeholder responses to the current modern slavery legislative framework have focused on four areas: the role of First Responder Organisations; the suitability of the NRM for certain groups; introducing new offences to the Modern Slavery Act 2015; and improving the NRM’s current provisions for victims.