Meaningful Justice and Human Trafficking in Britain

This week one shocking incident followed another. On 23 October, Essex police made public the discovery of 39 bodies inside an incoming heavy goods lorry. An investigation is still underway. The tragic news, however, overshadowed another recent story about immigration.

         

A recent Freedom of Information report announced that in 2018 the British Home Office detained over 500 trafficking victims under immigration powers. In response to trafficking incidents, the British government’s support mechanisms fail to adequately help victims.  Here, the Home Office covered up the plight of modern slavery victims, denying that, before the report's release, this sort of thing never happened. The announcement signaled some of the problems that surround Britain’s anti-trafficking legislation.

A European Handbook on victim referral.

Legislation has riddled authorities, like the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), with problems. Established in 2009, the NRM evaluates immigration cases, and identifies trafficking and slavery victims based on reasonable grounds. Victims either receive a positive or negative conclusion which determines authoritative action on their case. The NRM’s system is inadequate because it cannot assure victims that they will not be re-trafficked. A positive conclusion, for instance, leads to 45 days of victim support – then the NRM axes protection, and the victim’s future is uncertain. This method creates a circumstance where victims are liable to return to what Kate Roberts, head of the Human Trafficking Foundation, calls the ‘revolving door’ of exploitation.

         

The current problem is also a result of a lack of overall awareness. Tackling trafficking requires education at all levels of the global supply chain. Matthew Sands, a scholar, argued that ‘identification of victims [in Britain] is inconsistent and ineffective’. The Modern Slavery Act (MSA) Theresa May introduced in 2015 falls short on providing the legislative conditions needed to secure victims from further danger. In recognising victims, authorities, such as the police, are unsuccessful, thus leading to situations of exploitation. In their operational decisions, authorities miss the overall point: that the vulnerabilities and status issues of potential victims remain present. The news this week, that the Home Office detained over 500 victims, is an extension of this perceptive problem.

         

The MSA deals with a core issue. Through a focus on prosecutions rather than a more comprehensive system for identifying and protecting victims, the government enables such mistakes as detainment to happen. In the future, without working on a much clearer legislative system, Britain cannot achieve meaningful justice for victims of human trafficking.