The strategy report Disrupting County Lines: Policing Strategy 2024-2027 has been released by the National Police Chief Counsel (‘NPCC’), with the National County Lines Co-Ordination Centre (‘NCLCC’). Modern slavery and human trafficking within the UK often occurs across County Lines related to illicit drug trade, which means a coordinated response is required by police forces and first responders to identify victims of exploitation. Individuals recruited to sell drugs are often vulnerable adults or minors, who need to be identified as victims of criminality and reported to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). Most children involved in County Lines are between 15-17, however some are younger. The strategy pulls on recent statistics from the NRM whereby 11% of referrals were involved with County Lines. The strategy to disrupt County Lines was initiated in 2019, since which 5,000 drug lines have been closed. Furthermore, the strategy aims to:
- Prevent people engaging in County Lines, and the associated violence and exploitation.
- Proactively safeguard children and vulnerable adults from harm.
- Better prepare communities by building resilience against the harms of County Lines.
- Relentlessly pursue offenders, including Organised Criminal Groups, Urban Street Gangs and individuals running County Lines.
See here for the full report Disrupting County Lines: Policing Strategy 2024-2027.
Today marks International Identity Day 2024. Lack of identification is a significant risk factor in vulnerability to modern slavery and human trafficking. 850 million (1 in 9) people globally lack official documentation. This population is therefore out of reach of government protection from exploitation and abuse, as well as access to essential services including education and healthcare.
These risk factors are investigated by United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR), in collaboration with the Freedom Fund. Reliefweb highlights important findings:
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New research reveals the links between lacking official documentation and modern slavery. Without legal identity, people struggle to access basic services and are often forced into informal, dangerous and exploitative work.
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An estimated 850 million people around the world do not have legal identity. Women, children, rural dwellers, migrants, refugees and stateless individuals are most affected.
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Bureaucratic inefficiencies, high costs and legal gaps prevent people from securing documentation while social isolation, discrimination and stigma further worsen the situation for marginalised groups.
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People without identity documents are often confined to informal, low-wage work where exploitation and abuse frequently go unreported due to fear of approaching authorities.
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Government actions are urgently needed to address this global issue, including legislative reforms, community engagement and international cooperation.
See the full Freedom Fund report here.
‘Re-trafficking: The current state of play’ is a new report published by the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dame Sara Thornton, and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab.
The report examines the evidence, data and literature on re-trafficking, and was commissioned in response to lack of emphasis on preventing re-trafficking shown by policymakers and government. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner states that the knowledge base on re-trafficking is largely anecdotal and as there is no agreed definition of re-trafficking there are further difficulties in attempts to collect and assess re-trafficking data.
The report declares that does not propose recommendations but highlights three areas to be explored further in order to better understand re-trafficking. Those three areas are:
- Establishing a definition of re-trafficking
- Addressing the lack of data on prevalence of re-trafficking
- Developing dedicated reintegration pathways for survivors remaining in the UK or returning to another country
For the full report, please see here.
You can also find the press release for the report here.
Earlier in November 2021, UK’s Home Office published new statutory guidance on identifying and supporting modern slavery victims. Aimed at competent authority staff in England and Wales, the guidance explores what amounts to slavery, human trafficking and exploitation.
The guidance emphasis that human smuggling is not human trafficking and explains the differences between them, as well as, providing a list of myths about modern slavery and dispelling them.
The guidance also emphasises that competent authority staff, while not First Responders, should be aware of the indicators of modern slavery. It further explains system of identifying victims, lists the non-public authorities that are First Responders and further lists non-First Responder Organisations involved in tacking modern slaver and human trafficking.
The guidance then focuses on the process of referring potential victims, working with vulnerable people and the NRM decision making process. Lastly, it explores the support for adult and child victims.
Please see the government website for the full guidance.
A report released last year by the Freedom Fund and John Jay College gives some of the first reliable estimates in relation to how many children are involved in the adult entertainment industry in Kathmandu. It has always been known that a significant number of young people and children work in the adult entertainment industry in Kathmandu, but until recently no reliable estimates existed as to the true scale of the problem.
The study found that approximately 1650 young people under the age of 17 are working in the adult entertainment industry, making up approximately 17% of those working in the industry. The study also found 62% of workers were working in the industry before the age of 18. The majority of underage workers in the adult entertainment industry were found to be working in sexually exploitative environments and 99% were considered to be held in the worst forms of child slavery as defined by the International Labour Organisation’s convention.
The full study can be found
here.
The Centre for the Study of Democracy has released a paper looking at human trafficking within the EU and how it can be best understood by placing the financial proceeds of human trafficking at the centre of analysis. The paper recognises that there are substantial gaps in knowledge surrounding finances in trafficking in human beings in the EU, and this in part stems from local level law enforcement lacking specific experience in dealing with organised crime finances.
The report is broken into five main sections, including:
- A general overview of the state of criminal money management (CMM), and CMM within the specific context of human trafficking.
- Contemporary trends and market structures for human trafficking in the EU countries studied.
- The role money has to play in human trafficking.
- The role and implications ICT has for human trafficking.
- Survey of the role money laundering investigations can have in tackling trafficking in human beings.
The report concludes by summarising the main findings from each section and making policy recommendations for future research and practice.
Access to the full paper can be found here.
In 2016 a report by the International Labour Organisation found that on any given day there were around 25 million people subjected to forced labour, of which just over 4 million people were below the age of 18. This report by the ILO looks back on the targets set by the international community to end forced labour by 2030 and ensure that child labour had been eradicated by 2025, and aims to guide policy and procedure in the lead up to these key dates. The report is split into three sections:
- Key numbers relating to global modern slavery and the ways in which it may manifest.
- Ending forced labour through the 2014 forced labour protocol: which is broken into 4 key parts; Prevention, Protection, Remedies, and Enforcement.
- and, Ending forced labour in children and adults: looking forward to 2030 and 2025.
These sections identify the background and key information surrounding modern slavery, the current international instruments, and makes suggestions for ensuring that the targets are met.
The report can be found here.
In January 2017 a report titled ‘Understanding and Responding to Modern Slavery within the Homelessness Sector‘ was published. This was the result of an initial scoping exercise commissioned by the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner in 2016 to survey and better understand the links between modern slavery and homelessness. As part of this report, a leading charity in the homelessness sector, The Passage, was appointed to research the issue.
The report made use of 61 online surveys and 2 focus groups across England in conjunction with semi-structured interviews to research the links between these two issues. The key findings were that individuals living on the streets were vulnerable to exploitation, and that those who were already victims of modern slavery were at risk of becoming homeless if no effective long term support provisions are made available to them. As such, the report presents a set of recommendations designed to address the issues raised by the study and to improve collaborative, multi-agency responses.
The recommendations fall into three categories:
- Training and Raising Awareness
- Data Collection and Collation
- Partnerships
This report focuses on modern slavery and homelessness within England.
The Full report can be found here.
The Advocates for Human Rights published their labour trafficking protocol guidelines on the 31st of January 2019. The guidelines are designed to help communities identify and respond to labour trafficking victims throughout Minnesota, with a particular focus on young victims in their early 20s and younger. The guidelines draw on data collected from over 100 experts and are designed to account for the complex needs of a region that has rural, suburban and urban environments.
The protocol guidelines consist of 6 sections which give:
- Background and overview to labor trafficking.
- The universal protocol, which provides guidelines to the provision of an effective and comprehensive response to labor trafficking, including sections on collaborative responses, identification, and victim protection.
- A protocol implementation worksheet as a simple tool to assist communities plan their responses to labor trafficking.
- Sector specific protocol guidelines for use in conjunction with the universal protocol;
- Recommendations for changes to the law and policy to improve Minnesota’s response to labor trafficking victims.
- Appendices.
The report was funded Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Minnesota Department of Health. The content is solely the work of The Advocates for Human Rights.
The Full report can be found here.
The report, Criminal Networks Involved in the Trafficking and Exploitation of Underage Victims in the European Union analyses data from Europol’s action against child trafficking between 2015 – 2017. The importance of this analysis into child trafficking reflects minors being an extremely vulnerable sector of society. Children are often lured into labour or sexual exploitation, and as a result suffer severe physical and psychological damage. This report provides key information that highlights limitations in current systems, that can be used to create a strategy against future trafficking of children.
Key findings from the report:
- Child trafficking in the EU Trafficking and exploitation of male minors (especially for sexual exploitation) still remains an under-reported phenomenon at EU level.
- Traffickers active in the EU target underage victims mainly for sexual exploitation but also labour exploitation, to beg and to commit criminal acts, such as pickpocketing and shoplifting. Children are also trafficked for illegal adoption and sham marriages.
- Children are trafficked from around the world to the EU. The majority of nonEU networks reported to Europol involved Nigerian OCGs which traffic female minors and women to be sexually exploited. The OCGs are spread along the entire trafficking route and operate in several EU Member States.
- The majority of EU trafficking networks for child sexual exploitation reported to Europol are small in size (usually fewer than five key suspects) and active in one country at a time.
- Particularly harmful EU networks are large family clans which mainly traffic children for the purpose of begging, forced criminality and sexual exploitation. These clans operate in several countries at the same time and rotate victims on a regular basis.
- Children in migration and unaccompanied minors are at higher risk of trafficking and exploitation. Although the scale of trafficking of unaccompanied minors remains unknown, a future increase is expected.
For the full report Criminal Networks Involved in the Trafficking and Exploitation of Underage Victims in the European Union, October 2018, read here.
