RAISING AWARENESS ON MODERN DAY SLAVERY

Modern slavery is a surprisingly unknown concept happening under the radar right now. Many people hear the word slavery and wouldn’t think it was a problem happening in today’s society. The Telegraph published statistics showing that there has been a 47% increase in slavery victims since 2012.

Obviously including forced labour, being a victim of modern slavery or ‘human trafficking’ also includes sexual exploitation and abuse. Slavery isn’t exclusive amongst adults either, statistics show that 1 in 4 victims are actually children (1). There is estimated to be at least 5 million children across the world that are victims of human trafficking.

Many organizations exist in hopes to educate people about modern slavery such as EndSlaveryNow and AntiSlavery. Although many cases are found within countries such as Romania, Nigeria and Vietnam human trafficking still takes place and is prominent within the UK.

Unseen is one of the UK based organisations that works to provide a helpline for victims of modern slavery. Unlike other countries, many cases of human trafficking in England happen in plain site. Every day business’ such as takeaways, nail salons and car washes use forced labour on many illegal immigrants.

Within Hull there is one prominent organisation that works to provide information on modern slavery. The Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (W.I.S.E) aims “produce high quality and innovative research on slavery in all its forms, historical and contemporary. Advancing public understanding of both historic and contemporary slavery, thereby informing political and social change.” (2)

Last year W.I.S.E the conducted a poll which showed that whilst most of the general public were aware of modern slavery, over half of them( 55%) admitted to not being educated on the most common warning signs. So whilst modern slavery is known amongst the public the scale of the issue in the UK today is vastly underestimated.

Speaking to John Oldfield, the Director of W.I.S.E he said their main aim is to raise awareness about modern slavery. “We run campaigns such the #hiddeninplainsight campaign, which we ran last year on Anti-Slavery Day (18 October) which reached 18 million people.”

The #HiddeninPlainSight campaign saw Hull University student’s leave ‘human packaging’ – cardboard bord boxes – marked with facts about human trafficking and how prominent it is in society. A survey taken for this campaign showed that 8% of the people that took park truly understood the true scale of the amount of victims of slavery today.

Other than campaigns W.I.S.E work alongside the government and public services, Oldfield said “We’re working with Humberside Police and the Humber Modern Slavery Partnership to raise awareness of ‘what to look’ for, at the same time raising awareness of potential ‘hot spots’, e.g. nail bars, car washes, building sites.”

The issue of modern slavery is only growing, but it doesn’t have to continue being that way. Some warning signs include confinement and appearing detached from others. Many human trafficking victims will rarely have identification documents or many personal possessions in general. Other warnings are signs of abuse and a fear/reluctance to seek help from others. Educating yourself and others around you on the warning signs is the first step to reducing the number of victims we see each year.

(1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/lifestyle/modern-slavery-britain/11072232/modern-slavery-numbers-infographic.html

(2) http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/wise/about-us.aspx