Tech4Good Awards 2019

On the 17th July HTMSE attended the Tech4Good awards as a shortlisted finalist in the Community Impact Award category.The Tech4Good awards recognise the use of technology to make a social difference across a variety of different sectors, such as accessibility, connectivity, inclusivity and community impact.

Contemporary slavery is a current global issue, which directly affects even the corporate and commercial markets with the introduction of the s54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act, and similar legislation in the USA and Australia. Furthermore, the migrant crisis and forced migration has also compounded human trafficking and modern slavery, it has become an ever present issue and there has been an increase in media and public awareness on this topic. Almost 21 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery, which generates  $150 billion for traffickers each year and is a growing market.

The Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery Expert Directory (HTMSE) is an e-commerce initiative founded in 2015 by leading human trafficking lawyer Philippa Southwell, after identifying a desperate need for a single resource for professionals working in the counter human trafficking and modern slavery sector. The directory is an advanced search engine established in order to link specialists not just within the UK based legal community, but to connect with lawyers, medical experts, academics and corporate stakeholders globally that can advance development on this issue, and create the link between modern slavery victims and support. This use of technology in the counter-trafficking and anti-slavery sectors is unique, with the majority of technology being used to monitor and research victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, research and monitor suspected offenders, and to provide ongoing support to law enforcement agencies.

Since its launch, the initiative has established itself as a leading global directory. It enables individuals to search for professionals by their specialist fields and location worldwide.

Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Released

Independent Review Modern Slavery Act 2015

The Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 has was published this week on the 22nd May 2019. The review has identified eighty recommendations for improvements to the operation of the act and wider policies to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking in the United Kingdom. The review makes significant recommendations for how legislation should be amended to increase compliance by businesses and improve supply chain transparency, including:

  • Recommendation 25: Failure to fulfil modern slavery statement reporting requirements or to act when instances of slavery are found should be an offence under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.
  • Recommendation 22: The legislation should be amended to require companies to consider the entirety of their supply chains [in respect of modern slavery]. If a company has not done so, it should be required to explain why it has not and what steps it is going to take in the future.
  • Recommendation 18: In section 54(5) ‘may’ should be changed to ‘must’ or ‘shall’, with the effect that the six areas set out as areas that an organisation’s statement may cover will become mandatory. If a company determines that one of the headings is not applicable to their business, it should be required to explain why.
  • Recommendation 32: Section 54 should be extended to the public sector. Government departments should publish a [modern slavery] statement at the end of the financial year, approved by the Department’s board and signed by the Permanent Secretary as Accounting Officer. Local government, agencies and other public authorities should publish a statement if their annual budget exceeds £36 million.

The recommendations would significantly increase the responsibility on businesses to address anti-slavery in their supply chains, and afford the government greater power to punish companies that do not comply.

The full report can be found here.

From stadium construction to the games themselves: human trafficking and modern slavery is prevalent in the sporting sector

 

Sport can provide the context for human trafficking

When the words ‘sport’ and ‘human trafficking’ are put together it immediately conjures images of the use of forced labour to construct stadiums or work as hospitality staff at events, or even trafficked sex workers being exploited by organised criminals to make an income on the vast number of people gathering in a particular area. However, human trafficking can be found in other areas of sport also; trafficking of athletes.

Media reports often discuss the issue of trafficking athletes with respect to young boys being trafficked from Africa with the promise of a successful football career. Reports from 2018 placed the value of European football at over 20 billion Euros, with English teams accounting for almost a quarter of this, making it an incredibly alluring industry for those in poverty elsewhere in the world. The victims are often forced to pay a large sum up front before being transported to another country. The end countries are often far away from the major European stadiums that were promised, the destinations often including countries such as Nepal for the ease of acquiring visas. Whilst these issues are often discussed in relation to the football industry, it is in no way limited to football, and can be found in track and field sports, hockey, and camel racing in the Middle East.

A useful distinction when discussing athlete trafficking, and in particular trafficking in the football industry, is the difference between trafficking in football/sport and trafficking through football/sport. This distinction was introduced by Poli (2010, Cited by Esson and Drywood) as follows:

  1. Trafficking in football/sport: The individual is moved to the a destination country where they have their money and documents confiscated and controlled. They may be forced to sign an exploitative contract which is then further used to control them.
  2. Trafficking through football/sport: The individual is drawn into paying for transport to a foreign country with the allure of a promising career, though upon arrival they are abandoned.

Generally, most of the recent media cases related to athlete trafficking fit within one of these two distinctions. Whether there is an exploitative contract at the destination or not. However, some criticism of the second category, trafficking through sport, has arisen as to whether the abandonment in the destination country constitutes exploitation for the purposes of the UN definition of human trafficking.

Outside of the illegal exploitation of vulnerable young people from economically deprived backgrounds there have been criticisms of legitimate bodies acting either just outside, or within the deliberately ‘grey’ area of, the rules. These concerns particularly arise over the international transfer of young people between sporting clubs, which under the right conditions could amount to human trafficking, and there have been several high profile cases involving the ‘sale’ of children in a sporting context for the purpose of sexual exploitation. However, the market demands of these usual industry practices has raised concerns that they may operate contrary to the best interests of the children involved more generally. In the context of football, despite the introduction of regulations targeting the international transfer of child players to limit potential cases of trafficking, there have been continued instances of international transfers of children. International transfers, though not always constituting human trafficking, can treat children as commercial commodities. Consequently, these practices are not in the children’s best interests or welfare, especially when considered in respect of the UN Convention of the Rights of a Child. Since these practices are more likely to occur within major legitimate corporate structures, and possibly even within a regulatory framework, isolating instances of human trafficking may be much harder than the cases involving debt bondage and agreements made on false promises

With trafficking of athletes increasingly in the spotlight there has been some criticism of the labour practices involving young athletes taking college sporting scholarships. College sports scholarships have in some ways been likened to modern slavery practices, with athletes being paid what amounts to a very low hourly rate for many hours of their time training and competing. Furthermore, the necessity of their scholarship to their future—many of these athletes coming from more deprived backgrounds— and strict requirements of amateurism can lead to excessive measures of control by scholarship funders and little opportunity for the players to leave their contracts. However, it is unclear from current reporting on the issue whether the exact conditions college sports scholars are under constitute coercion sufficient to amount to modern slavery.

Overall, it is clear that there are many different ways in which human trafficking can manifest in the context of sport. Though there has been no discussion of the links between forced labour, construction, and major sporting events, or the links between sporting events and sexual exploitation, these are important issues to account for. When forced labour and sexual exploitation are also included it is clear that the sporting sector is one at high risk of human trafficking and modern slavery. The conditions for human trafficking can occur under the traditional ‘push and pull’ of economic deprivation and a ‘way out’ and appear congruent with traditional concepts of human trafficking. But human trafficking in sport can also occur within the legitimate structures of sports player transfers, particularly transfers of children, without proper safeguards for their welfare and best interests.

New article considers modern slavery to be a public health concern: but how has the healthcare sector approached the problem?

Healthcare responses to human trafficking

On the 26th February 2019 the British Medical Journal published an article entitled ‘Modern Slavery: A Global Public Health Concern‘ that identified that “health professionals are well placed to identify and advocate for victims“. This article analyses some of the current health care responses to modern slavery and which health care professionals can help provide a comprehensive response.
In 2012 the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a document on human trafficking that addressed some of the public health concerns of human trafficking, highlighting that:

… evidence on health and human trafficking is extremely limited…” (p.2)

The document noted that most of the 16 studies consulted had focused on sex trafficking with only two that looked at forced labour, overall recommending that health care providers increased their capacity to identify and respond to human trafficking, and that urgent research needed to be done on modern slavery and trafficking in men so that more comprehensive responses could be made.
Since 2012, medical authorities and institutions, such as the Royal College of Nursing and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have incorporated a number of policies, documents, and professional resources to help identify and appropriately categorise instances of human trafficking and modern slavery. The WHO authorised an adaption of the ICD-10 for use by the US government, and it is this tool that the CDC have added new codes to for the purposes of reporting suspected cases and examination and observation of victims of trafficking.
It is well recognised now that medical and health professionals play a key role in targeting human trafficking and modern slavery, and organisations such as HEAL have released a variety of training resources and toolkits to help different health professionals in responding to human trafficking. These health professionals can be drawn from any health sector, including counsellors and psychologists, doctors, nurses, first responders, dentists and many others. These key moves towards mobilising the healthcare sector in combating human trafficking and modern slavery represent a significant addition to the global effort to eradicating modern slavery and human trafficking; which effects an estimated 40 million people globally. Multi agency and cross sector responses, from active investigations to supporting survivors, is vital to an effective and comprehensive response to such a major humanitarian crisis. The trend of increasing awareness and active responses in the healthcare sector adds a significant dimension to global anti-trafficking and anti-slavery efforts.

Access to the articles can be found here. The full article citation is:

Such, E., Walton, E., Bonvoisin, T. and Stoklosa, H. (2019) Modern Slavery: A Global Public Health Concern. British Medical Journal. 364, p.1838.

Victims of modern slavery at risk of homelessness – Homeless at risk of becoming victims of modern slavery

Homelessness and Destitution
A
Significant links can be found between modern slavery, human trafficking and homelessness. In 2017 the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner‘s Office published a report entitled ‘Understanding and Responding to Modern Slavery within the Homelessness Sector’, which followed a 2016 exploratory survey conducted in conjunction with the homelessness charity ‘The Passage‘. The main findings, which have since been re-published in The Passage’s 2018 Anti-Slavery Handbook, primarily suggested that those who are homeless and destitute are at significant risk of exploitation, and those victims of slavery are at risk of becoming homeless without proper provision of long term support strategies; accommodation has been identified as one of the most pressing provisions required for victims of modern slavery by other homelessness charities.
 A
The report found that:
 A
“… the majority of homelessness organisations (64% of survey respondents) have, to varying degrees, encountered potential cases of modern slavery…” (p.10)
   
And that whilst there is a degree of recording and there is certainly some awareness of the problem:
 A
 …data on the numbers of potential victims of modern slavery [within the homelessness sector] is lacking or unreliable. This is either a result of a lack of recording or of a lack of information” (p. 10)
   A
Aside from the issues in reporting, which were noted as needing improvement in their accuracy and reliability, there was a clear need from the report that greater co-operation was required across different agencies to comprehensively tackle the two overlapping issues. One of the current issues noted by the report is that the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) required reports to come from a designated first responder, which most homelessness charities are not. This causes unnecessary delays, as noted by the report, and clearly demonstrates the need for multi-agency responses, or reforms to the NRM so that a broader spectrum of organisations may act as first responders for a crime that can effect anyone from any background.
 A
Since the report there have been a variety of handbooks and advice documents produced specifically targeting the issue of homelessness and modern slavery;  from both Non Governmental and Governmental organisations, for a wide range of groups and organisations that may come across modern slavery in the homelessness sector, targeting both homelessness resulting from modern slavery or slavery resulting from homelessness.
 A
Given the vulnerability of homeless individuals becoming victims of modern slavery, and the risk of slavery victims becoming homeless, the importance of multi-agency responses to both issues to avoid situations where individuals undergo continual cycles of exploitation is clear.  As such, more research into the overlap between homelessness and modern slavery, both in terms of the nature and extent of the overlap and the effectiveness of responses, is greatly required.
 A

A

Links to the full report and a short summary of the findings can be found on our e-learning page here.

Europol’s Role in Combating Child Trafficking

Europol plays a critical role in combating crime rings within Europe through international cooperation. It provides a centre for law enforcement expertise and international data exchange. Combating human trafficking is one of its five core security priorities, with an aim to disrupt organised crime groups involved in the trafficking of people in and out of the EU. Trafficking is often disguised by legal business structures that directly or indirectly facilitate exploitation. The report, Criminal Networks Involved in the Trafficking and Exploitation of Underage Victims in the European Union analyses data from Europol’s 2015 – 2017 findings in relation to child trafficking.

Although a wide demographic is affected by human trafficking, minors are the most extremely vulnerable sector of society. Children are often lured into sexual, labour or other forms of exploitation, and as a result suffer severe physical and psychological damage.

Unaccompanied minors that may be in the process of migration or orphans, are common trafficking victims that need protection from state and law enforcement actors. However one of the most concerning complexities within the regulation of child trafficking, is the role of families in facilitating the sale or exploitation of their own children. The ‘private’ nature of families forms a protective shield against reporting or disclosure of the child’s wellbeing.

In a similar respect, legal businesses such as brothels, red light districts, sex clubs, within some EU states facilitate the exploitation of minor victims. However recruitment processes are shifting, with the use of online advertisement of sexual services being used as a major platform for the exploitation of children, whereby they are ‘sold’ as adults. Cyber security is another core sector of focus for Europol that intercepts with the issue of child trafficking.

Document and identity fraud for fake identification of minors is a core component of child trafficking to conceal the minor’s real age. In tracing the international movement of victims and traffickers, Europol plays a key role working between EU states to intercept organised crime gangs working internationally.

It is clear that Europol’s role in EU state to state data sharing and law enforcement cooperation is critical. The consequences of Brexit must be considered in terms of regulating international security threats. The UK is the second largest contributor to Europol’s information systems, and currently leads the teams on human trafficking and modern slavery. Ceasing the UK’s involvement in Europol’s affairs may have downstream effects on the capacity to respond effectively to such issues.

Global Supply Chains: 4 Principals Adopted Against Modern Slavery

The UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA have made progress in the movement to expel modern slavery and labour exploitation from global supply chains.

These five partner countries have created a set of 4 principles designed for nations all over the world to adopt, in order to promote ethical supply chain compliance within their jurisdictions. The principles are aimed at policy level, addressing both public and private sector procurement, supply chains, recruitment and encourages the need for cooperation between such actors.

The four principles are as follows:

Governments should take steps to prevent and address human trafficking in government procurement practices

  • analyse, develop and implement measures to identify, prevent and reduce the risk of human trafficking in government procurement supply chains
  • provide tools and incentives and adopt risk assessment policies and procedures that require their procurement officers and contractors to assess the nature and extent of potential exposure to human trafficking in their supply chains
  • take targeted action, including adopting appropriate due diligence processes, to identify, prevent, mitigate, remedy, and account on how they address human trafficking

Governments should encourage the private sector to prevent and address human trafficking in its supply chains

  • work in partnership with business, workers and survivors to set clear expectations for private sector entities on their responsibility to conduct appropriate due diligence in their supply chains to identify, prevent and mitigate human trafficking
  • provide tools and incentives to the private sector to encourage meaningful action and public reporting of their efforts, including through programmes policies or legislation

Governments should advance responsible recruitment policies and practices

  • advance responsible recruitment practices, including by implementing polices that incentivise and support responsible practice, and by support initiatives such as the ‘Employer Pays Principle’
  • contribute to the growing knowledge base of promising practices for protecting workers from fraud and exploitation in the recruitment process

Governments should strive for harmonisation

  • make reasonable efforts to share information and work with other committed governments to align existing and proposed laws, regulations and polices to combat human trafficking in global supply chains

 

The UK,  leading global efforts in anti-slavery policy, is encouraging governments at the UN General Assembly to adopt these principles. By leveraging the combined $600 billion purchasing power of the partnered nations there is the capital to influence high-level actors in both public and private sectors.

The principles provide a clear and progressive framework for cooperating governments to aim towards. The major drawback, however, is the lack of enforcement of these principles, which in many instances is controlled by  legislation. However, for these principles to be effective in practice rather than theory, strict and coherent sanctions are critical. The further challenge is to address cross border transactions, and encourage non-cooperative countries that produce the majority of global slavery statistics to adopt and enforce such principles.

Modern Slavery On Our High Streets

Educating the public on signs of modern slavery within their workplace or community is key to identification and cooperation to combat labour abuses

Along with the progress seen in the UK’s legislative framework around human trafficking and modern slavery, there is growing public awareness of the issue. In order for the justice system to work effectively to intercept traffickers, there is demand for the public to be educated on signs of labour abuse, and to work with authorities to report it.

A ground breaking case in January this year led to two traffickers jailed under the Modern Slavery Act for involvement in the trafficking of teenage girls from Vietnam to work unpaid in nail bars in Bath, UK. The importance of this case highlights how victims of slavery can fit into society so blatantly that many people who witness it, do not question the criminality behind it.

UK authorities such as the GLAA have composed toolsets for public education around the identification of modern slavery. Spot the Signs guidance provides clear explanations of human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage and outlines specific types of exploitation to be aware of, including labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, organ harvesting and criminal exploitation. The industries regulated by GLAA for forced labour are agriculture, food processing and packaging, construction, warehousing and logistics, service industry and catering, sweatshop manufacturing. As HTMSE have previously noted, there is an ever growing number of target industries for traffickers, including recently recycling and waste processing, football and sports, the beauty and massage industry, as well as a notorious market for forced criminality in cannabis growing operations. 

Although each case of labour exploitation will have a variety of variables and indicators, as seen in the Bath case, young, foreign girls who seem fearful or ‘controlled’, and a have language barrier whereby their traffickers can take advantage of them, are potential victims. The GLAA outlines the most common indicators of labour exploitation. In addition to the victim’s characteristics and behaviour, signs to look out for in a victim’s situation are

Unfortunately, once a potential victim is identified, it is not a simple process to restore their freedom. Due to the nature of their mental ‘conditioning’ by the traffickers, Stockholm Syndrome poses a major issue for authorities. If victims do not know they are being exploited or understand their situation, in many cases they are fearful of authorities and will resist cooperation. Spot the Signs highlights the irrelevance of the victim’s “consent” if they are “controlled by force, threats, coercion, abduction, fraud and deception” as it constitutes control over another person. For example, in the Bath case, one of the victims ran away from their foster home to their traffickers within days of release. This is where a victim centred approach, particularly in language services, is critical to consider right from the beginning in the identification of potential victims, and on going in order to ensure successful rehabilitation.

Although the public may not wish to become involved in a case, it is their civic duty if they witness or have suspicion of labour exploitation, to report it. In order to encourage the reporting of modern slavery suspicions, authorities should safeguard interests by maintaining anonymity and providing comprehensive, simple reporting methods. Educating the public on the signs of modern slavery within their workplace or community is key to identification and active public cooperation to combat labour abuses.

Analysis of Global Revenue Produced by Human Trafficking

The International Labour Organisation estimates human trafficking derives USD 150.2 billion per year, making it one of the most profitable criminal ventures worldwide
The International Labour Organisation estimates human trafficking derives USD 150.2 billion per year, making it one of the most profitable criminal ventures worldwide

In parallel to the transatlantic slave trade as one of the most profitable business ventures in global history, modern slavery in the form of human trafficking follows suit. The International Labour Organisation estimates human trafficking derives USD 150.2 billion per year, making it still one of the most profitable criminal ventures worldwide. Furthermore, in an environment of globalisation it is rapidly increasing in numbers and in typologies. The rise in displacement and movement of people, whether in refuge from conflict zones, economic or environmental migration means there is increased vulnerability to trafficking, and in turn, more revenue produced by trafficking rings.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) compiled a study Financial Flows From Human Trafficking to address the use of human trafficking as a source of money laundering and terrorist funding. Modern terror networks have indeed taken advantage of this profitable business venture, which creates a complex nexus between trafficking, money laundering and terror financing.

The report divides human trafficking into three categories in which revenue is produced through very unique money laundering systems. Firstly, trafficking for forced labour produces USD 51.2 billion per year, of which USD 43.40 billion is generated by hard labour exploitation, and USD 7.9 billion produced through domestic servitude. Second, trafficking for forced sexual exploitation produces USD 99 billion. Third, organ removal produces between USD 600 million – 1.2 billion, however the report refrains from providing a defined figure because the crime is rarely done in isolation, and therefore overlaps with other crimes which clouds the figures.

The aim of the FATF report is to provide “tangible indicators and best practices for national authorities to improve their effectiveness in combatting money laundering and terrorist financing from human trafficking”. In order to understand these systems appropriately, they provide a set of ‘money laundering indicators’ to be adopted by specialists and authorities working in the human trafficking sector,  to create a systematic form of recording and analysing financial flows from trafficking. The report finds major issues that international actors have in disrupting the nexus between human trafficking, money laundering and terror financing, and outlines resolutions including the need to:

On analysis, the conclusions of this report put significant weight on the need for cooperation between international, state and regional authorities to work together in combatting financial flows from human trafficking. However, there are many challenges and complexities including the corruption of state actors that contribute to the global trafficking systems and obscure the financial figures recorded, including which revenue streams are being used for terror funding. The international institutions such as FATF need to work closely with governments to systematically identify and analyse this. By nature of the black market, accurate figures are impossible to find which inhibits the capacity of national authorities, financial institutions, NGOs and actors to prioritise responses to human trafficking in its various forms. Yet as we further understand the finances of the crime, we are able to respond with effective measures of prevention and resolution.

For the full FAFT report, Financial Flows From Human Trafficking read here.

World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2018: Join the HTMSE Directory in the Fight Against Human Trafficking

World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2018

The United Nations has allocated the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, occurring for the 5th year on July 30th, in order to raise awareness for the heinous crime that plagues every country globally, whether a place of origin, transit or final destination.

Behind drug trafficking, human trafficking is one of the most profitable criminal networks where millions of vulnerable people are forced, manipulated or coerced into moving to a foreign destination, whereby they will endure exploitation at some point along their path. This may take the form of hard labour, sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced criminality, organ removal or ever developing forms of exploitation, for example skin removal, online pornography, and exploitation in the sports industry.

The International Labour Organisation reports that 21 million people are subject to forced labour globally, of which a large proportion have been trafficked. Women and girls make up around 70%, and children or minors make up 30% of all trafficking victims. Hence, the focus for World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2018 is on ‘responding to the trafficking of children and young people’ as announced by the UNODC. The aim is on prevention, education, support and justice for the child victims of trafficking.

In order for this movement to be most effective, professionals within the fields of human trafficking and modern slavery need to work together, pool resources, expertise and specialism. The HTMSE directory is a global platform that lists professionals in the fields of law, trafficking and country experts, medical experts, counsellors and therapists, specialist organisations and researchers who are working towards the same goal of eradicating exploitation, trafficking and slavery. On this World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2018, we welcome you to join our initiative or use the resource in your fight against human trafficking alongside our professional network, to achieve support and justice for victims of trafficking.

For further information on World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2018, see here.