With my paper being on human trafficking and the influence that policies can have in the Europe, I have found a piece that specifically looks at a bill proposed by the United Kingdom, a self-proclaimed leader in the fight against modern slavery. Based on notions that assumed that slavery could not be possible in our more modern era, the UK government was reluctant to support the United Nations “Palermo Protocol,” which targeted the prevention, suppression and punishment of trafficking people, especially women and children. It was revealed that there was significant ignorance in the British Parliament about their knowledge of the trafficking. As evidence grew, the United Kingdom began their first real attempt at combating trafficking by creating the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) in order to collect and monitor data to report to the government about the extent of human trafficking. The UKHTC received 3000 referrals that year from First Responders at the location to which victims seek rescue and rehabilitation. Additional organizations contributed to the growing knowledge of human trafficking and enslavement, revealing new forms of slavery within the UK including “the imprisonment of young (often Vietnamese) men by Chinese gangs to manage cannabis “farms”, the severe physical and sometimes sexual exploitation of domestic workers by wealthy businessmen/women and diplomats, forced begging and theft by young children trafficked or smuggled into the UK for this purpose and the suggestion, although as yet unsubstantiated, that some people had been trafficked into the UK for the purposes of organ harvesting.”
With all of this overwhelming evidence and pressure from prominent organizations, the government finally published a draft Modern Slavery Bill, appearing in December of 2013. The Bill faced intense criticism because of how weak it had been considering the United Kingdoms intent to be the world leader on the issue. After a grueling process of examination from multiple parties, scrutiny and critiques, the final Bill was published and sent on for the process in which it becomes an Act of parliament.
While the awareness of modern slavery continues to grow, the Bill’s primary focus is on human trafficking despite the early debates that made an attempt to create wording that would include all possible offenses. Another key focus of the Bill is on the protection for the children that are impacted and while the focus on trafficking remains the center of the Bill, the main focus has been on sexual exploitation. The biggest concern of the author is the lack of attention paid to the issue of trafficking as a means to use victims for labor exploitation or forced labor. Although forced labor is in itself a criminal offense, the cases of forced labor brought to the courts are low. A case made notable by the author is one that was dismissed by a judge because they argued that if the victims were able to move around freely, they could not be considered slaves. This completely negated the emotional or psychological impacts of victims in the case.
Fortunately, the government has taken steps towards combating forced labor by requiring companies to take responsibility for exploring slavery within their supply chains although the Committee did not take interest in protecting the domestic workers to the same extent. The government has also been pressured to widen the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to extend its focus on just three industrial sectors to more, if not the whole of the labor market.
It is important to observe the ways in which different countries in Europe attempt to combat human trafficking within their own country and throughout the rest of the world in order to get a better understanding of unforeseen impacts of their methods. While the United Kingdom hopes to be the leader in combating against modern day slavery, it easy to gage from this article how difficult it is for their government to produce legislation that can encompass the broad spectrum of human slavery.
Craig, Gary. 2015. “Human Trafficking and the UK Modern Slavery Bill.” Social
Inclusion3(1):136.