Antislavery Usable Past

There are an estimated 136,000 people living on conditions of modern slavery in the United Kingdom (Global Slavery Index 2018). According to the 2017 annual figures provided by the National Crime Agency, 5, 145 potential victims of modern slavery were referred through the National Referral Mechanism in 2017, of whom 2,454 were female, 2688 were male and 3 were transgender, with 41% of all referrals being children at the time of exploitation. People are subjected to slavery in the UK in the form of domestic servitude, labour exploitation, organ harvesting and sexual exploitation, with the largest number of potential victims originating from Albania, China, Vietnam and Nigeria. This data however does not consider the unknown numbers of victims that are not reported.

Mila was born in the Philippines where she began working as a child. She travelled to the UK for employment as a domestic worker. Her labour was exploited. Mila had no freedom of movement and was subjected to abuse in her employer’s house. She is now living in the Philippines and no longer works as a domestic worker.