Modern slavery sufferers decide to stick with exploiters for worry of deportation, analysis reveals

Modern slavery sufferers are opting for to stick with their exploiters moderately than get right of entry to govt make stronger designed to give protection to them for worry of immigration enforcement, analysis has discovered.

The unbiased anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, stated the device was once “deeply broken”.

Two items of analysis shared completely with the Guardian discovered that, a decade after the creation of the Modern Slavery Act, the landmark piece of law designed to give protection to trafficking sufferers and apprehend their perpetrators was once failing.

The first find out about, from Nottingham University’s Rights Lab and commissioned through Lyons’ workplace, will probably be revealed subsequent Wednesday.

The record, titled Refusal to Consent, discovered refusals to get right of entry to assist from the federal government’s make stronger device for trafficking sufferers, have been at document ranges.

Potential sufferers who come into touch with the government however don’t need to use the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) are recorded in statistics referred to as responsibility to inform. These reviews have soared through greater than 630% since 2016 – from 762 in 2016 to 5,598 in 2024 – an indication sufferers are dropping consider within the device.

Fear of deportation is the main explanation why sufferers are rejecting make stronger, in step with the record, which wondered execs operating with sufferers and analysed govt and educational information.

Many sufferers imagine the NRM is a entice that results in immigration enforcement moderately than coverage. Hostile immigration insurance policies and inflammatory language from the federal government is scaring sufferers clear of the methods intended to give protection to them, it discovered.

Some traffickers use govt rhetoric in regards to the adversarial setting and the specter of deportation to stay their sufferers ready of exploitation, in step with the analysis.

Government go back agreements with Albania and Vietnam, that have prime numbers of trafficking sufferers, have higher worry of coming ahead amongst sufferers from the ones nations. In 2024 sufferers of trafficking have been amongst other people being issued with notices of intent that they have been going to be forcibly got rid of to Rwanda.

The 2nd record, Barriers to Prosecutions and Convictions underneath the Modern Slavery Act 2015, is from the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre on the University of Oxford. It commissioned analysis from the Wilberforce Institute on the University of Hull, which analysed prosecution information because the act was once presented and located it remained low, with prosecutions as a proportion of possible trafficking sufferers referred to the NRM at simply 1.8%.

Between July 2023 and June 2024 17,120 possible fashionable slavery sufferers have been referred to the NRM whilst over the similar duration 58 other people in England and Wales have been convicted of offences connected to fashionable slavery.

Alicia Heys, an educational on the University of Hull who authored the find out about for the PEC, stated: “Part of the intention behind the Modern Slavery Act was to ensure that perpetrators receive suitably severe punishments, yet 10 years after the introduction of the act, conviction rates remain low. Sometimes, offenders are pursued under different legislation, for example relating to drugs or controlling prostitution, which misrepresents survivors’ experiences.”

Lyons stated: “It’s heartbreaking but not surprising that more and more potential victims of modern slavery are saying no to help.

“When fear of deportation outweighs the promise of protection, when there are few consequences for criminal perpetrators and people feel safer staying in exploitation than entering the system that’s meant to help them, something is deeply broken.

“This report is a wake-up call: the national referral mechanism, the government’s framework of support, isn’t just misunderstood, it’s mistrusted, mishandled, and in urgent need of reform.”

The Home Office has been approached for remark.