The Modern Slavery Act 2015 was introduced to consolidate offences, improve victim protection, and enhance the UK’s ability to prosecute those responsible for human trafficking and modern slavery offences.
The key measures of the Act were consolidating and clarifying offences gathered under the umbrella of modern slavery, from slavery and servitude, to trafficking and compulsory labour, increasing the penalties for these crimes up to life imprisonment. The Act also introduced statutory defence for people forced to commit crimes as a result of their exploitation, confiscation of traffickers’ assets and prevention orders to restrict activities of suspected perpetrators.
But despite increased public and professional awareness and a growing number of National Referral Mechanism (NRM) referrals, prosecution and conviction rates under this legislation remain low.
The Modern Slavery and Human Rights PEC has published a report analysing what has gone wrong - and well – for successful prosecutions since the Modern Slavery Act was introduced ten years ago, and identifies opportunities to address these challenges. The research was carried out by Dr Alicia Heys, a Senior Lecturer in Modern Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull, and the Co-Investigator of the Modern Slavery PEC on behalf of her University.
This podcast is a recording the lunchtime seminar, Dr Alicia Heys talked about her research exploring why convictions under the Modern Slavery Act remain limited and what we can do to improve the situation.
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You can read more about the report by clicking the button below.
The Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) works to transform the effectiveness of laws and policies designed to address modern slavery by funding and producing research on modern slavery with a focus on policy impact. We are part of the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford, and we’re funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
