The toughest rules in the world to combat slavery and human trafficking will be introduced in Britain, home secretary Theresa May has promised.
Under a draft Modern Slavery Bill, published yesterday, the top penalties will rise from 14 years to life “to ensure that perpetrators pay for their crimes”.
Currently, up to 10,000 people are believed to be held as slaves in Britain, though the Home Office, police and non-governmental organisations admit that certainty about figures is impossible.
Last year, however, nearly 2,000 people – many of whom had been trafficked into Britain and sold to prostitution gangs – reached help, a number that is a quarter higher than a year before. “Slavery has no place in Britain. It is an affront to the dignity and humanity of us all, and it is the responsibility of us all to help stamp it out,” Ms May said.
Some victims, however, fear coming forward because they could be prosecuted for crimes, such as prostitution, committed while being held captive, or because they could be deported. Ms May has not offered victims a right to stay in Britain, but promised help to ensure that they could return home “in ways that minimised the risk of future exploitation”.
However, existing British law worsens the plight of people who are brought in, often from South Asia, to work as as domestic servants and then held in servitude. Under the law, they cannot leave to work for someone else. Labour MP Frank Field, who authored a report on the issue for the Home Office, said: “We need to think if the balance is right.”
Currently, slavery and trafficking are tackled by three pieces of legislation – one dealing with sexual offences, another asylum and immigration and the third covering servitude.
Under the plan, the various arms of the law will be brought together into one act of parliament, while simplified guidance will be offered to police and prosecutors to increase prosecutions.
A series of cases has been taken against Irish Traveller families, some of whose members were convicted of holding homeless men in servitude, sometimes for decades.
Convictions are difficult to get, according to leading QC Peter Carter, partly because victims are “reluctant to trust” police and prosecutors.
“That is why protecting victims, giving them encouragement, giving them support and garnering their confidence quickly [is important] so that the full story comes out,” he said.
Labour MP Yvette Cooper said the draft legislation should include greater protection for trafficked children, since two out of three go missing after they have been put into care homes. A legal guardian should be appointed for each of them, she said, to make sure that they got the care they needed, to help them understand that they were still at risk and to keep “far away from their abuser”.
The International Labour Organisation believes that 21 million people are trapped in servitude having been “deceived or coerced” into work which they cannot leave.
Many European Union victims are brought into the UK “with the offer of an apparently legitimate job and so they travelled willingly to the UK, not aware of the horrors that awaited them”.
On other occasions, victims are brought in “by their own families or family connections often for domestic servitude”, according to the Field report.
