Londoners cannot ignore the human trafficking crisis

Aug 9, 2018 by Jill

by Philippa Stroud, City AM:

We are rightly proud of London’s status as a global city that attracts talent and investment from all over the world.

But London’s success has a hidden and sinister underbelly: human traffickers who exploit vulnerable refugees and migrants, by forcing them into a life of exploitation.

This is the subject of a new report from the Legatum Institute which looks at migration and the lives of those living in slavery in the twenty-first century.

The problem lives with us in the capital. In November, the charity Hestia reported seeing a 30 per cent increase in the number of victims it supported in Britain on the previous year.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan recently highlighted “the stain of modern slavery” in the city. Across the UK, there are 13,000 potential modern slaves working in dangerous conditions, mostly in construction, with no contract or guarantee of payment, according to Home Office figures.

Eastern Europeans are particularly vulnerable to traffickers who control their bank accounts, steal their social security benefits, and force them to take out loans on credit cards, threatening physical violence if they do not hand over the money.

Read here

See also: Human trafficking: 150 child slave victims identified, by Nicola Bryan, BBC News