Human trafficking in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) is a destination country for men, women, and children primarily from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe who are subjected to human trafficking for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced labour, including domestic servitude. It is also a source country since some victims, including minors from the UK, are also sex trafficked within the country. ^[1] British citizens accounted for 25% (4,299) of all recorded potential victims in 2023, when they represented the most frequently referred nationality. The majority (78%; 3,350) of UK nationals were child potential victims.^[2]

In 2012 it was ranked as a "Tier 1" country by the US Department of State, which issues an annual report on human trafficking.^[3] "Tier 1" countries are those whose governments fully comply with The Trafficking Victims Protection Act's minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The TVPA is a federal statute of the United States.^[4]

The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons report placed the country in "Tier 1" in 2017^[5] and in 2023.^[6]

Migrant workers are trafficked to the UK for forced labour in agriculture, construction, food processing, domestic servitude, and food service. Source countries for trafficking victims in the UK include the United Arab Emirates,^[7] Lithuania, Russia, Albania, Ukraine, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Nigeria, and Ghana. Precise details about the extent of human trafficking within the UK were not available in 2009, and many have questioned the validity^[8][9] of some of the more widely quoted figures (such as the 'police estimate' that there are up to 4,000 trafficking victims in the United Kingdom at any one time).

UK authorities began to launch aggressive anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts to uncover trafficking and identify victims. During 2009, a six-month investigation into human trafficking by all 55 police forces of the United Kingdom failed to find a case of human trafficking.^[10] In May 2012, a cross-border operation involving police forces from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which included the raiding of more than 130 premises, resulted in eight arrests.^[11] Three of these arrested persons were thought to be trafficking victims. It emerged that the women were not victims of human trafficking, and they were consequently charged with running a brothel. Each woman received a suspended sentence, and forfeiture orders were made for cash found at the premises during the raid. It was stressed that human trafficking did not feature in the eventual court case. Many believe that the repeated failure of large-scale police operations to find any evidence of trafficking exemplifies the inaccuracy of the human trafficking statistics often quoted by NGOs and the media, while others insist that failure to find human trafficking is merely indicative of its underground nature.

In 2020, the US State Department estimated that there were 13,000 trafficking victims in the UK.^[12]

In 2023, the International Organization for Migration published a report on human trafficking between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland; it noted that increasing numbers of east Africans were entering the Republic and using the Common Travel Area to travel to Northern Ireland and enter the UK, and recommended all-island training and closer information systems between the two countries.^[13]