A new report exposes damning evidence: the U.K. government is locking up trafficking victims with the number tripling in the last four years. Detention of trafficking survivors is inhumane and risks seriously exacerbating survivors’ existing trauma, contributing to severe mental health issues and increasing the risk of suicide.
The UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons has explicitly called for potential and confirmed victims of trafficking to be removed from prison-like settings.
The vast majority of people who go through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the U.K.’s system for identifying and supporting trafficking survivors, receive a positive conclusive grounds decision. This means that they are confirmed as having experienced trafficking or modern slavery and are entitled to receive support.
Over 90% of cases referred from people in detention go on to be confirmed as victims of trafficking through the NRM. Yet, the U.K. government continues to peddle false claims that trafficking victims are abusing the system.
The bar has been raised for trafficking victims to prove their exploitation, with a failure of victims to volunteer information within a specific timeframe to be considered by the Home Office as grounds to reject their claim based on “damaged credibility”.
The UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman reiterates the government’s commitment to undermine trafficking victims’ and migrants’ rights in the pursuit of inhumane border controls. A proposed “blanket ban” on people being able to seek asylum if they have entered the U.K. through irregular routes flies in the face of refugee laws and will force people to take more dangerous routes.
Traffickers will exploit this vulnerability. Combined with the rollback of the already limited support trafficking victims receive is deeply worrying. Freedom United said that we must keep calling this government out to take action against detention for trafficking survivors now.
