Tue, 29 Jul 2014
Trafficked workers and forced labour is on the rise in the UK but a new initiative in Derbyshire aims to tackle the problem by educating businesses.

Last summer, Derbyshire Constabulary and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) combined forces in Operation Atwood, the outcome of which was jail for two Slovakian couples found to have been human trafficking for the purpose of forced labour.

In a continuation of that partnership, the organisations, under the name Project Advenus, this week began visiting Derbyshire businesses potentially at risk of trafficking within labour supply chains. 

Companies will be educated in how to spot signs of trafficking and forced labour. 

Signs include, for example, restriction of movement, isolation, physical and sexual violence, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages and more.

GLA chief executive Paul Broadbent said trafficking workers for the purpose of forced labour was on the rise and was recently highlighted in Derbyshire by “some shocking, high-profile cases where people have been forced into lives of modern-day slavery”.

In another Derby case, a Slovakian man was last week persuaded to report his situation to the police and subsequently escaped being forced to work for six years.

A GLA spokesperson told Recruiter that trafficking for labour had taken over from trafficking for sexual exploitation as accounting for the largest percentage of trafficked people in the UK. 

He said it was commonly Eastern Europeans being trafficked into low-paid industries such as food processing and packaging.

The businesses to be visited have either unknowingly employed trafficked people, or use large numbers of agency or migrant workers so are therefore susceptible to employing such people.

The spokesperson said the GLA would be open to working with other police forces in a similar fashion.