Violence and Conflict

When thinking of “slavery” it is often easy to dismiss it as a notion embedded within the past. While slavery has affected many different individuals throughout all periods of history, it is most commonly associated with the colonial legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade that persisted from the late 16^th to early 19^th century. Whilst the progression of human rights may have led to the legal abolition of slavery, this is far from meaning that slavery is completely extinct. Slavery, still, is a prevelant issue across many modern societies.

Recent statistics from a report by the International Labour Organisation suggest that around 50 million individuals are trapped in conditions of modern slavery. According to the human rights group Walk Free, slavery is most prevalent in Asian and African countries, particularly in North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia.

In the UK, Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index estimates that approximately 122,000 individuals are living in modern slavery. The National Referral Mechanism for modern slavery in the UK has also received yearly increases of referrals involving exploitation. It is important to recognise that slavery encompasses a variety of forms. The 2015 Modern Slavery Act lists the offences prescribed to modern slavery as “slavery”, “servitude”, “forced or compulsory labour” as well as “human trafficking”.

Anti-Slavery International cites that criminal exploitation and forced labour are the most common forms of slavery in the UK. Criminal exploitation often involves coercion into cultivating and selling drugs. Vulnerable individuals like refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are commonly targeted for this work, and many of them are often trafficked into slavery from overseas. Individuals may be trafficked into criminal activities like cannabis farming, or equally may be coerced into sexual exploitation, domestic slavery or forced labour in farms, shops or factories. It is often the case that these individuals remain trapped in labour due to “debt bondages”, whereby they are forced into work in order to pay off a debt. This means that victims will receive little or no pay whilst working in exploitative and poor conditions.

In these instances, it is also very common for victims to have their passports taken away and for them to be abused and/or imprisoned by their captors. Modern slavery may therefore comprise of entrapment through various psychological, physical, monetary and legal means. However, slavery is not solely a product of the unlawful act of human trafficking. Individuals who have lawfully immigrated to the UK may also be subject to slavery.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that certain people working under a seasonal worker visa – a government scheme supplying temporary work and residence in the UK to foreign seasonal workers – endured maltreatment which violated the government’s commitment to prevent modern slavery. The investigation found that victims faced several violations including wage theft, denial of medical care, and abuse. According to the UN’s special rapporteur on modern slavery, the UK government may be “in breach of international law” for failing to investigate “clear indicators of forced labour” within this scheme.

Walk Free reported that Albanian and Eritrean nationals, followed by British nationals, appear to be at greatest risk of entrapment into slavery within the UK.  Among British nationals, an increasingly alarming situation has emerged, whereby children from disadvantaged backgrounds are bieng forced into “county lines” drug trafficking. Children are exploited to transport drugs across official borders and this exploitation may take the form of coercion, intimidation, and violence. In fact, Anti-Slavery International outlines how roughly a quarter of those trapped in modern slavery worldwide are children. Not only are these children vulnerable for exploitation due to their socio-economic status, but they are also targeted due to their inability to stand up for themselves, setting up a power imbalance for abusers to take advantage of.

It is also worthwhile to note, a country can become complicit in the axacerbation of slavery through importing products of slave labour. Walk Free reports that nearly two thirds of all forced labour is pooled towards global supply chains, whereby victims work in materical extraction and manufacturing processes. The use of slave labour is particularly prominent in the fashion industry, as well as in the production of electronics. For instance, Anti-slavery International documents how almost 20% of global cotton production is connected to China’s forced labour of minority groups like Uyghur Muslims. It is also common for child labour to be involved in the mining of cobalt, which is used to make phones. Although the 2015 Modern Slavery Act encourages transparency in supply chains, one could question the success of this aim due to a 2021 VICE news report found that 40% of UK companies never submitted a sufficient statement or faced repercussions for non-compliance.

Ultimately, while the majority of countries have domestic anti-slavery legislation, slavery still remains a tool used to oppress vulnerable individuals within society. It may seem easy to dismiss slavery as an external issue, as the UK has significantly developed its anti-slavery legislation, but if the goal is to eradicate modern slavery globally, there is still much to be done. It is also a fallacy to associate modern slavery with so-called “third-world” countries, given that the UN has found over half of all forced labour rings operate in upper-middle income or high-income countries. Therefore, complicity in modern slavery does traverse across geographical borders and societies, and for this to be addressed, we must acknowledge its attachment to our consumer econo,u and all the inequalities embedded within it.