Modern slavery and trafficking ‘in every UK town and city’, by the BBC.
Modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK is “far more prevalent than previously thought,” the National Crime Agency has said.
The NCA said there were more than 300 live policing operations currently, with cases affecting “every large town and city in the country”.
The agency estimated that there were tens of thousands of victims. …
He warned that trafficking into modern slavery was now so widespread that ordinary people would be unwittingly coming into contact with victims every day.
The NCA said the growth in modern slavery was being driven by international gangs increasingly recognising the amount of money they could make by controlling people within a huge range of economic sectors, rather than just dealing drugs. …
What is modern slavery?
Modern slaves in the UK, often said to be hiding in plain sight, are working in nail bars, construction sites, brothels, cannabis farms and in agriculture.
Traffickers are using the internet to lure their victims with hollow promises of jobs, education and even love.
Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam, Romania and Poland are the most likely countries of origin, but some victims are from the UK itself. …
Many believe they are escaping poverty, limited opportunities at home, a lack of education, unstable social and political conditions or war. But their slave masters are usually out to make financial gain.
Sexual exploitation is the most common form of modern slavery reported in the UK, followed by labour exploitation, forced criminal exploitation and domestic servitude.
A corollary of massive immigration? The article interviewed Cherie Blair, but perhaps it should have asked her husband: “Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser,” by Tom Whitehead in 2009:
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”. …
