Human slavery, forced labour and the public social responsibility.

Human slavery in the early 21^st century has been well documented now and the general public understands that such a terrible social phenomenon still exists. Yet there may be hesitation over what to do – how would you know if slavery was occurring in your local district? It goes without saying that human slavery/trafficking/forced labour is hard to track. When each story breaches in the media the decent locals all say the same thing: “I can’t believe this sort of thing was happening in our nice neighbourhood”. It would seem much of this oppressive slavery is hidden in plain sight. What can you do? Where would you report to? Are there signs that we should be able to pick up on?

In Wales the November 2012 BAWSO conference did an exceptional job of bringing together many organisations dealing with their own areas of stopping human slavery and increasing co-ordination and co-operation between all these groups, researchers, charities, police and Government.

In 2013 this was followed by Ben Cooley’s Hope for Justice conference where videos, papers, presentations were all contributed in the hope of raising awareness and co-ordinating efforts to reduce the terror of human slavery. The 2014conference will be held in Leicester.

As these groups are all brought together, information is shared; networks to beat these crimes are developed. Everyday people can develop knowledge and skills on how to beat the slavery issue. Academic research from groups such as Joseph Rowntree Foundation have contributed work on trafficking/forced labour to the public. Some very brave journalist have gone undercover to investigate this emerging social phenomenon.

Men , women and children may all be in danger – it is not just ethnic minorities that are sold as sex worker slaves – yet men and children used in similar terrible ordeals; or used as forced labour on farms, nail shops, domestic servants, or any other establishments which we could not predict slavery may be occurring within.

These networks, charities and government agencies who are combatting the slavery issue are dealing primarily with the ‘end-of-pipe’ event where victims are picked up by the police. As further investigation continues the sources (international trafficking rings) are being investigated which hopefully will lead to arrests.

As awareness is raised we all become increasingly vigil (or paranoid?) yet one should not investigate themselves – rather raise your concerns with the appropriate charities or tell your local police station. As more concerned citizens contribute information the greater the problems can be solved by the authorities.

Step up – report what you suspect is going on. If enough people do it a national network of informational reporting will evolve – the authorities will build up complex models and tackle the problems. Human slavery can be tackled … together we can understand our world and make it a better place.