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Rescued trafficking victims in UK detained, denied support

by Kieran Guilbert | KieranG77 | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Tuesday, 21 November 2017 17:03 GMT

A Group 4 security officer walks down one of the corridors of Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, a detention centre for illegal immigrants, in Bedford, United Kingdom in this 2002 archive photo. REUTERS/Russell Boyce

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"Survivors of slavery with irregular immigration status are seen first and foremost as immigration offenders, rather than the victims of crime"

By Kieran Guilbert

LONDON, Nov 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Rescued victims of trafficking in Britain are often detained at immigration centres rather than given support, with some convicted of crimes linked to their exploitation or deported, campaigners said on Tuesday.

Picked up in police raids on brothels, cannabis farms, car washes and nail bars, many modern-day slaves are taken to detention centres where they struggle to access support services for victims, according to charity Detention Action.

Rather than being locked up, victims should be referred to Britain's National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which decides whether or not someone has been trafficked, and offers help through services from healthcare to housing, the charity said.

Yet victims are often left in limbo because Britain's Home Office, or interior ministry, is responsible for both NRM referrals and deporting undocumented migrants.

"For far too long we have seen evidence that survivors of slavery with irregular immigration status are seen first and foremost as immigration offenders, rather than the victims of crime," said Kate Roberts of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

"Not only does this deny justice to those individuals, it also means that the perpetrators of crime remain free to exploit others," Roberts told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Detention Action examined the cases of 16 Vietnamese men in detention who appeared to have been trafficked, and found that nine had been referred to the NRM to have their status judged.

Only two of the nine men were recognised as slaves and given support, the charity said.

"The government must urgently introduce effective screening and an independent system of referrals to the NRM, to ensure that no victim of trafficking is left in detention," said Susannah Willcox, advocacy coordinator at Detention Action.

Some trafficking victims are even charged with and convicted of crimes they committed at the behest of their traffickers, such as producing cannabis, according to the charity's research.

Yet the police's awareness of slavery and trafficking and its response to victims has hugely improved in recent years, said Anne Read, head of anti-trafficking at the Salvation Army.

Britain's Home Office said it provides guidance to its staff working in detention centres on how to identify potential victims of trafficking and slavery and refer them to the NRM.

"Supporting victims of modern slavery and human trafficking is a priority for the Government, which is why we have recently announced wide scale reforms to the NRM," a spokesman said.

At least 13,000 people in Britain are estimated by the government to be victims of modern slavery - but police say that the true figure is likely to be in the tens of thousands.

(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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