Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre

Big big thank you to everyone who came to our conference "Ten years on from the Modern Slavery Act: Where next for modern slavery law and policy?" yesterday at the British Library. It’s been amazing to see so many of you in there (over 250 people, the theatre was packed!), as our director Murray Hunt remarked: "it’s heartening to see so many people caring about this issue amongst the general madness around us." Thank you for sharing all the conversations with us on where we are and where we need to go next for the upcoming decade in addressing modern slavery. Thank you to all the speakers, from the Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips MP, who delivered a keynote speech, and Julie Etchingham who drilled into some of the issues the Minister mentioned in the Q&A, to Eleanor Lyons, the UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, who opened the afternoon session with a speech on her priorities, and all the panel chairs and speakers. We don’t have enough space to mention all of you - a big thank you to you all! - but at least a shout out to the brilliant chairs: Jasmine O'Connor OBE, Dame Sara Thornton, Chris Murray MP, Sophie Otiende, Patricia Durr and Tony Vaughan MP. A big shout out to "our own" Jane Lasonder, who opened the conference with a challenge to the attendees: "Survivors aren't stories walking on legs, they need to be embedded at every level of work against modern slavery." Finally, big thank you to our hosts the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford for the support in organising the event and to our funders at the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for enabling it to happen. If we missed someone here, we apologise, there have been genuinely too many people we engaged, worked with and spoke to around the conference to even remember this morning! Look out for more coming out of the conference, including recordings of some of the sessions and a blog with key takeaways from the conference.

NEW RESEARCH! Definitions of child exploitation New research says that inconsistent definitions of child exploitation are undermining the identification and protection of children who were exploited in forms such as sexual, labour and criminal exploitation, or domestic servitude. -         Children whose cases don’t fit one of the official definitions can fall between the cracks and not be identified as victims. Definitions can directly influence whether a child victim is seen, heard, and helped. -         The report found that out of 1,396 negative decisions for child referrals into the NRM in 2024, over 61% were rejected on the grounds that the case did not meet the definitional threshold required to proceed. -         Frontline practitioners described how children with clear signs of exploitation sometimes receive a negative NRM decision purely because their situation cannot be perfectly slotted into the legal definition or guidance. -         Definitions of child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation, child labour exploitation or domestic servitude entail different elements in separate parts of legislation and statutory guidance, causing confusion and meaning that children are not identified, and investigations/prosecutions affected. For example: o  Statutory definition of CSE and guidance definition of CCE include coercion, deception, or manipulation, in contrast to international definitions of trafficking which underlines children can never consent to being exploited. In CCE, this often means children are treated as offenders perceived as making ‘choices’ to get involved criminal acts. o  In contrast to the international definition, domestic legal definitions of human trafficking focus on travel, which leads to UK practice often applying narrower thresholds and excluding children exploited online or locally. o  Age is a factor which clouds practice, for example the legal age of sexual consent being a barrier in the identification of child sexual exploitation for 16- and 17-year-olds or child criminal exploitation. The report called for an urgent adoption of a clear statutory definition of child exploitation encompassing all forms of it. The research was carried out by ECPAT UK with the support of Freshfields LLP, and was commissioned by the UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) at the University of Oxford. The PEC is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Read more on our website: https://lnkd.in/e-CqAEhH.

In case you missed it: Lunchtime seminar on definitions of child exploitation. This event will present the soon-to-be-published research led by ECPAT UK exploring how definitions of child exploitations used by practitioners impact cases of children who have been exploited. 📅 Tuesday 22 July 2025, 12.30 UK time 👩💻 Presentation: Laura Duran, Senior Research and Policy Officer at ECPAT UK, co-author of the report. 👩💻 Opening remarks: Eleanor Lyons, UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. 👩💻 Closing remarks: Patricia Durr, CEO of ECPAT UK. 🖋️ Register: https://lnkd.in/e8seTYRH 🤝 The event is co-organised by the Modern Slavery PEC, UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and ECPAT UK.

Today is World Youth Skills Day, celebrated to recognize the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. For people who have experienced modern slavery, one of the key factors in their recovery is access to decent employment so that they can rebuild their lives and be protected from being exploited again. The Sophie Hayes Foundation (SHF) delivers employability programmes, providing a comprehensive and trauma-informed service for women survivors that includes foundational skills training such as CV-writing and interview skills, digital literacy, English language development, and personal mentoring. Our PEC-funded research project, led by the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham in partnership with SHF, evaluates how this programme specifically works to prevent re-trafficking amongst survivors of modern slavery in the UK to provide evidence on its impact and potential to reduce re-trafficking. We need know more on how to deliver such programmes effectively and provide skills to people affected by exploitation to make sure they can work in decent conditions free from exploitation. Read about the project here: https://lnkd.in/e2bm2Hyf

NEW EVENT! Definitions of child exploitation. This event will present the soon-to-be-published research led by ECPAT UK exploring how definitions of child exploitations used by practitioners impact cases of children who have been exploited. 📅 Tuesday 22 July 2025, 12.30 UK time 👩💻 Presentation: Laura Duran, Senior Research and Policy Officer at ECPAT UK, co-author of the report. 👩💻 Opening remarks: Eleanor Lyons, UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner.  👩💻 Closing remarks: Patricia Durr, CEO of ECPAT UK. 🖋️ Register: https://lnkd.in/e8seTYRH 🤝 The event is co-organised by the Modern Slavery PEC, UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and ECPAT UK.

There have been recent media debates about the reform of the system supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the UK, after over 100 campaigners, academics and SEND parents called on the Government not to scrap the education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children with special needs. EHCPs are legally binding documents outlining a child's needs and the support they need from a local authority. It’s important to note that - as PEC-funded research led by The Manchester Metropolitan University points out - children with special needs are exposed to greater risks of grooming and exploitation in what often amounts to modern slavery. The report called for a national strategy to prevent children with SEND from being groomed and exploited, as well as for increasing resources for supporting children and relevant training for frontline workers. Although statistics on modern slavery and SEND are not routinely collected, practitioners in the study anecdotally reported a large proportion of their case load include children and young people with SEND. Prof. Anita Franklin, who led this study, was one of the signatories of the letter to the Guardian. You can read it here: https://lnkd.in/eDJQ3Rck Read more about the research on children with SEND being at a higher risk of exploitation: https://lnkd.in/gtiFqUuv

Delighted to have had the opportunity to speak at the 2025 #ILO Regulating Decent Work Conference in Geneva last week as part of the Worker Voice and Labour Governance panel. Alex Hughes and myself presented our research on preventing modern slavery in healthcare supply chains. We shared reflections on the importance of meaningful engagement with lived experience experts and workers affected by debt bondage—highlighting both the benefits and challenges of involving survivors throughout the project lifecycle. The project is a collaboration between Brighton and Sussex Medical School at University of Sussex, Newcastle University, Impactt, and Unseen UK, and is funded by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre. You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/eDdbPGA4 #DecentWork #ModernSlavery #EmployerPays #WorkerVoice #sustainablehealthcare #LabourRights #DecentWork #ModernSlavery #EmployerPays #LabourRights #WorkerVoice

We are delighted to report that the team behind our funded research evaluating the effectiveness of the Employer Pays Principle (EPP) in preventing modern slavery in the Malaysian healthcare supply chains spoke at the 2025 ILO Regulating Decent Work Conference in Geneva earlier this week, on the ‘Worker Voice and Labour Governance’ panel. The team, which included a worker consultant, spoke about the meaningful engagement of lived experience experts and workers affected by debt bondage in their research, including the benefits and challenges of survivor engagement throughout the life of a project, as well as strategies that could mitigate potential risks. The project is led by Brighton and Sussex Medical School at University of Sussex, Newcastle University, Impactt Limited and Unseen UK. You can read about it here: https://lnkd.in/eDdbPGA4 Mei Trueba Alex Hughes

Towards the end of the UNODC #voicesofresilience Global Forum, I started drawing up this continuum to help us understand the continuum of lived experience engagement. 1. There is a continuum between survivors/people with lived experience who (A) volunteer in the sector and are happy to do so, and (B) have full time professional roles in the anti-trafficking sector as employees or independent contractors. And a lot of people are in-between. People who only want to consult part-time, or take projects as they arise. And people who are consulting part time but want a full time role. 2. Everyone on the continuum has different professional and educational backgrounds in general, and different professional and educational backgrounds on the issues related to human trafficking. 3. People can be "experts" in their own lived experience, but not anti-trafficking experts. People can also have expertise in both. People can have lived experience and still not feel "expert" in their own experience because they haven't had access to resources to help make sense of their experience, BUT however they make sense of their experience is also more than okay and worth listening to. AND it's important to ask people with lived experience who are also "experts" in anti-trafficking or hold roles in the sector, for input that has nothing to do with our lived experience. Zoi Sakelliadou Silke Albert Dr Marieke Jasperse Marcela Loaiza Shamere McKenzie Alicia Ley Survivor Alliance Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre Jane Lasonder Dr Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman

Two more important events to report from... 1. At the Development Studies Association's conference ‘Navigating crisis - dangers and opportunities in development’, our team behind the research on the research on equitable engagement of lived experience in development work by the University of Liverpool convened a roundtable on opportunities at the intersection of development work and interventions to address modern slavery and human trafficking. On the photo are our Research Director Alex Balch, the PEC's co-lead-researcher Wendy Asquith and Najwa Sabek. More photos, including of the star-studded roundtable, you can find here: https://lnkd.in/e--qppt5. 2. Our co-lead-researcher Marija Jovanović from the Bonavero Institute at Oxford University spoke at the Matrix Chambers conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act, talking about the intersection of the Act’s protective obligations and immigration control issues, explored building on her research and legal analyses for the Modern Slavery PEC. (Photo from the Matrix Chambers post: https://lnkd.in/e6Z_vcQJ.)