Between March 2023 and June 2024, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Prison Service received 372 warnings from prison staff that prisoners and young offenders in England and Wales may be victims of modern slavery, according to data obtained by openDemocracy via Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. Of those 372 warnings, 132 related to UK nationals – the largest number of alerts for any nationality group.
Our finding is supported by data from the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the official system for identifying modern slavery victims. Since 2016, UK nationals have been the largest nationality group of modern slavery victims identified through the NRM every year except 2022, when for adult victims it was Albanians (for under-17s, British children remained the biggest group).
Despite the data being clear that British nationals are most at risk of being exploited, the former government continued with its framing of modern slavery as an immigration, not a safeguarding, issue.
It introduced the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA), which says any foreign victims sentenced to more than 12 months in prison are not entitled to modern slavery support – even when their crime was committed under duress.
Even as the law was passed, the UK's official statistics regulator reprimanded the Home Office for failing to produce data to back up its claims that criminals were pretending to be modern slavery victims. But that did not stop the government from pursuing its narrative.
Two years on, NABA has made life much harder for foreign nationals who are potential victims of modern slavery – leaving them more vulnerable to being deported, re-trafficked, and struggling to overcome trauma.
In the UK, policymaking on modern slavery has typically focused on sexual exploitation, explained Carole Murphy of St Mary's University and the director of the Bakhita Centre for Research on Slavery, Exploitation and Abuse.
This has led to a failure to legislate against other forms of modern slavery, Murphy told openDemocracy, which has helped to create a system where victims are viewed as perpetrators – and punished as such.
In reality, the most common form of modern slavery in the UK last year was criminal exploitation. This accounted for more than a quarter of the 17,004 referrals to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the official system for identifying modern slavery victims, according to our analysis of government data.
As the name suggests, criminal exploitation involves forcing or coercing a person to commit a crime. But the UK's immigration laws state that vulnerable foreign nationals who are imprisoned for carrying out crimes under orders from an abuser or attacker are threats to public order, not people in need of help.
This is particularly worrying since children are more likely to be referred for criminal exploitation than any other form of modern slavery, with 3,124 such referrals to the NRM last year. This trend continued into this year; adults were more likely to be victims of forced labour in the first six months of 2024, while children remained most at risk of criminal exploitation.
Criminal exploitation most often relates to drug cultivation and dealing. The NRM received 1,559 child referrals for county lines activity, where criminals persuade, force or coerce children and young people to store and transport drugs and money, often across police and local authority boundaries. The vast majority of these victims were boys aged 17 and under.
Another FOI request by openDemocracy reveals that the 372 warnings the MoJ received about a potential modern slavery victim being in prison concern 379 drug offences. Multiple offences can apply to one individual. Most (272) of the warnings related to possession with intent to supply class A, B and C drugs. Sentences for such crimes range from a fine to life imprisonment, meaning foreign nationals forced by their traffickers or abusers to sell drugs have likely been excluded from modern slavery support under NABA rules.
There were also 57 convictions for cannabis production, a crime commonly associated with trafficked Vietnamese teenagers. A 2017 investigation by the Guardian revealed that in 2012 alone, 96% of identified trafficking victims who were forced into cannabis cultivation were from Vietnam and 81% were children.
The MoJ received 39 warnings that imprisoned Vietnamese nationals were at risk of modern slavery between March 2023 and June 2024, according to openDemocracy's research. Sentencing guidelines say a person convicted of cannabis offences should be imprisoned for at least 18 months – meaning they, too, would be cut off from modern slavery support. For children, the guidelines state, "a custodial sentence should always be a measure of last resort".
Maya Esslemont, director of After Exploitation, a non-profit organisation working to track the hidden outcomes of modern slavery in the UK, described openDemocracy's findings as "deeply concerning".
Esslemont added: "We have known for years that survivors of modern slavery forced into county lines or marijuana cultivation are being treated as perpetrators rather than victims, even in cases where they have no assets to their name and are incredibly vulnerable."
For potential victims who do end up in the criminal justice system, there are "many barriers" to proving they are a victim, said Murphy of the Bakhita Centre for Research on Slavery, Exploitation and Abuse. Not least among these, she continued, is that "they may have been groomed to believe the person exploiting them is their friend".
This was echoed by Marija Jovanovic, a human rights lawyer and University of Oxford academic with a research interest in modern slavery and human trafficking. She said: "There is no firewall between the criminal justice system and protection. Once they are perceived as offenders, it is extremely difficult to change this label and redirect them towards the mechanism established to provide protection and support."
In theory, victims of modern slavery who are charged with a crime can use the Section 45 legal defence in court. This defence requires jurors and judges to take into account that someone has been compelled to commit a crime as a direct result of slavery or exploitation.
But many victims struggle to use Section 45 due to the levels of proof it demands that a crime was committed under duress, and because courts interpret "compulsion" – the measure of whether someone was coerced into committing a crime – very narrowly.
Independent forensic social work consultant and criminologist Craig Barlow told openDemocracy that "the underlying problem with Section 45 is that it seems to misunderstand the depth and complexity of trauma experienced by trafficking victims".
Barlow continued: "The legal tests it imposes fail to account for the reality of modern slavery and the psychological scars it leaves behind."
The Ministry of Justice refused to answer openDemocracy's FOI request about how often the Section 45 defence has been used in recent years.
British victims off the radar
NABA has undeniably worsened the situation of foreign-born modern slavery victims. But the decision to view modern slavery via an immigration, not safeguarding, lens has also put another group of victims at risk: UK nationals.
"There is no doubt that modern slavery and human trafficking are closely linked to the issue of migration: migrants, both regular and irregular, are often subject to exploitation precisely because of the intrinsic vulnerability that such migration status creates," said Jovanovic.
"But modern slavery is equally closely related to labour market regulation, international trade and supply chain regulation, as well as criminal justice system, and there is no reason why an immigration lens should be a predominant or the only way of seeing and tackling this complex issue."
Experts warned openDemocracy that viewing modern slavery through an immigration lens left British victims struggling, as, explained Murphy, "they are often not on support services' radar."
"A lot of services are set up with foreign national victims in mind, with British victims feeling that their needs are overlooked," she said. "This is not about creating a hierarchy of victims, but about ensuring all victims get the support they need."
The far-right has tried to sow division on this issue, recruiting British survivors of sexual exploitation in its efforts to convince the public that foreign victims are being prioritised for support. This recruitment is made easier when the government treats modern slavery as an immigration issue, rather than one of safeguarding, as British victims may feel excluded.
In reality, though, such claims by the far right are simply not true. Support is, in theory at least, available to both UK-born and foreign victims, although neither is guaranteed to get the help they need, not least because those who end up in prison struggle to access their rights.
But it remains the case that treating modern slavery as an immigration issue, rather than one of safeguarding, risks British victims feeling excluded, while also alienating foreign national victims. Alicia Heys, lecturer in modern slavery at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, explained that because the Home Office places the responsibility to house victims on the local authority, many victims can face a "postcode lottery", with support varying from region to region.
"There is no national framework or national governance for local authorities to deliver support for modern slavery," Heys said. "Some local authorities are not aware they need to offer support, or they do not have funding to deliver support, meaning victims slip through the net, unable to access the support they need to recover and move on from exploitation."
"Victims are asked 'why are you here' by support services," said Murphy, who emphasised that this was not down to a lack of care and empathy, but due to confusion about who is responsible for British victims. "Such questions can be traumatising."
The Home Office and Ministry of Justice were approached for comment.
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