Rise in children exploited by slave masters
THERE have been more than 100 victims of modern slavery in Greater Manchester so far this year – and threequarters were children.
New statistics published by the Home Office show that the number of modern slavery cases has continued to remain at an alarmingly high level across our region this year.
Some 122 cases of suspected modern slavery have been uncovered in Greater Manchester in the year to September.
Around 75 per cent of those cases involved children.
The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) is a framework for identifying victims and ensuring they receive the appropriate support.
It is also the mechanism through which data is collected about victims, helping to build a clearer picture about the scope of the threat. Looking at cases referred by Greater Manchester Police, as well as local councils, there were 40 cases in the first quarter of this year.
That fell to 35 between April and June, but rose to 47 between July and September. The potential cases referred to the NRM by Greater Manchester Police in the latest quarter included two cases of Pakistani women in domestic servitude, nine cases of labour exploitation involving adults and children from the UK, Vietnam, and Latvia, one case of sexual exploitation of an Albanian woman, and five UK girls, one Romanian girl and one Guinean girl who were victims of sexual exploitation.
Nine British nationals were exploited according to the latest figures.
Across the UK, 2019 has seen a dramatic rise in modern slavery cases.
The number of potential victims of modern slavery referred in the first three-quarters of 2019 has already surpassed the 2018 total. So far this year 7,273 people have been referred into the scheme.
A total of 6,993 potential victims were referred into the system in 2018, up from 5,142 in 2017, and 3,804 in 2016.
The number looks set to rise further.
Between 1 July and 30 September 2019, 2,808 potential victims of modern slavery were referred to the NRM – 724 of which were UK nationals.
That was up 21pc on the previous three months – and up a massive 61pc from July to September 2018.
The rise has mainly been driven by an increase in ‘labour exploitation’ – where people are forced to work for little or no pay. The Home Office suggested that a rise in county lines criminal activity is behind an increase in young people being exploited for their labour.