AIBU to think human trafficking only happens in foreign countries and not in this country?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm55gzvv1dro

Just saw this article. Heartbreaking.
It's so shocking when the family could afford to pay proper wages.

My friend works for the MET in human slavery/trafficking and is VERY busy. The stories are horrifying

Well, statistics say you’re wrong so…

One of the first things the current government did was to take rights away from these women.

There had been a situation where if a woman was abused by her 'employers' if she left then she became an illegal immigrant. Under Labour the law was amended so that these women were not tied to their employer, they could leave and seek work as a domestic servant with another family.

But that was removed.

There may be discussion around changing the definition but currently it's as I stated about moving drugs over county lines which may or may not involve other issues such as trafficking. I hope that helps.

The irony being, society is now so obsessed with colonialism and slavery with the public being compelled to flagellate themselves to right these historical wrongs but hiding in plain sight is modern day slavery bought through human trafficking going on throughout our towns and cities. I do wonder whether our rulers deliberately try to distract us so we don’t register what’s going on everyday on our high streets.

I am a safeguarding governor at a primary school, we had a trafficked child, part of a group of 10. We were fortunate as a member of staff had been a Looked After Child, and the story we were told did not add up. Initially Social Services did not believe us but he was rescued within a couple of weeks.

OP, it is all around you and no, flying through an airport does not reduce it happening.

At least 10 years ago now, a neighbour of ours was having a big extension built. All the male workers looked SE Asian, v possibly Vietnamese, and every time I walked past they looked scared. More than once I saw who was transporting them back and forth - it was a very big hefty Irishman (I heard him shouting at them) in a large white van. I was convinced that they’d been trafficked and were being exploited and I still really regret not taking any action. 🙁

This is such an interesting thread and there are so many knowledgeable posters giving good information, so thanks for starting the thread op!

Sadly I think human trafficking is rife in the UK because it generates significant amount of money for businesses and individuals who want cheap biddable often illegal labour such as sex work, drugs. I also strongly suspect they bribe the police, border forces, immigration officials and politicians to enable it or turn a blind eye as needed. Some of the storylines in Line of Duty on human trafficking have authenticity about them.

I think this is the problem - so many police will be complicit in this so there’s not really any incentive for them to stop the crime. I hope you’re in a better place now.

@floppybit thank you. I think about the other girls I was close to all the time. We never knew real names so I can't find anyone.
The police who used us were bastards, and I don't trust the police service at all now. I'm sure there are some nice helpful ones etc etc but I still don't.

This is awful, I'm so you and the other girls went through this. To hear of girls forgetting their own names and the fact the police vice squad were using the escort agencies is particularly disturbing.

Where I used to work we had agency workers through a local agency, turned out they were all trafficked, the agency housed them all at high cost ie most of their wages and sent them out to work. The owner would even bring them to work in his big fancy car and try to talk to our regular staff, he was a smooth talking creep. Police involved all the carers moved on to god knows where he was shut down and no idea what happened to him and his family.

Trafficking of British nationals, particularly young British national is a huge issue, and they are very difficult to help. A foreign national can be returned to their own country, but where can a British national be returned to? The same place where they were trafficked from in the first place- often with little parental oversight or input, for whatever reason. Or they would not have been so vulnerable in the first place. And often, they immediately get trafficked again. For a British 14 year old, with no father and a disengaged mother, there can be no way out

I agree. Keep hitting the low level operations. Seize assets even if they have little value. It will make setting up again quickly unprofitable.

It will benefit local communities as legitimate nail bars/car wash etc will be able to operate.

No, but we have the slowest asylum processing times in Europe. If someone is going to be processed in a year and sent home the traffickers won't get as much ' value' as they will out of someone who is here for 5 years, and can be so easily lost in the system. We have hundreds if asylum seekers who the authorities have no idea where they are. They aren't living it up on benefits in 6 bedroom houses. They are probably living somewhere as slaves working for criminal gangs.

I am an interpreter. In our work, we meet so many people trafficked here ! Men, women, old people, teenagers, even children. So many.... 😔😔

So because our systems are admittedly far from perfect, you’re assuming that the same doesn’t happen elsewhere?

I think it's time to change direction. It's all well and good sitting back, gathering evidence, and waiting/watching until you can catch a small number of "higher ups", but the number prosecuted is tiny and it takes years and a lot of resources to close down one supply chain. I just don't think it's working.

I think it would be far better to hit it hard at street level and aim to prosecute the more "mid range" people involved in the logistics/operation at lower levels. Yes, it doesn't get the top, but realistically, we're getting so few of them anyway.

This "wait and get the top people" approach is clearly failing as drugs, weapons and people trafficing is just continuing to rise. We need a new approach.

I think there is an element of people traffickers knowing that our border control and immigration system is creaking do badly that it is easy to disappear people here. When it takes 5 years to process asylum cases people, even if they are caught and have to claim asylum are hanging round, and can more easily be forced to work for gangs. The boring way of dealing with this would be to adequately fund public services including immigration and border control. The red meat way is to bang on about Rwanda and small boats.

Agree wth all the posters on here regarding traffickign.

Will add that I think why people like OP might be a bit confused at first, or questioning if British people are trafficked, is because of movies and tv. We've all seen that police drama about human traffickers "shopping" for pretty blonde girls or whatever, and the frantic search to find her as her family worry themselves sick.

The reality is that most trafficking victims were already vulnerable. For all the reasons mentioned for ones coming from other countries but those same sort of vulnerabilities exist for people born here. They are poor, or perhaps don't have family/are down on thei rluck etc. Trafficers aren't "stealing" middle class teenagers from brighton.

WTF? Do you never read the news?

@ExitChasedByAPanda I'm in a much, much better place now- life is very lovely. Not perfect but then who's is?

What are your grounds for saying the U.K. is ‘probably one of the worst countries’? Do you actually have grounds for saying it, or is it just what you like to think?