Agenda item - MODERN DAY SLAVERY

Agenda item

MODERN DAY SLAVERY

To receive a briefing on Modern Day Slavery from Emine Arif and Sherry Salih, Modern Day Slavery Investigators.

Minutes:

RECEIVED a presentation from Emine Arif, Modern Slavery Investigator.

 

NOTED:

 

(i)            The Modern Slavery team consists of a team manager and two investigators all of who work closely with a specialist police team in the borough.

(ii)          Their role is to tackle the criminal element of Modern Slavery and locational and business issues.

(iii)         The victim work is still held by the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH); this is the lead agency who the LBE Modern Slavery Team support.

(iv)         The team have links with LBE internal teams such as Enviro health, council tax, business rates, ASB and YOT teams to name but a few.

(v)          External links include the Police (local and central), other boroughs, HMRC, DWP, Enable and NHS colleagues.

(vi)         Referrals to the team come from lots of departments including ones already named above as well as schools, colleges members of the public and councillors. There is a helpline which is manned during working hours and referrals are also received via email.

(vii)        Modern slavery is an umbrella term which includes human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour.

(viii)       This is the recruitment, movement, harbouring or receiving of children, men or women through the use of force, coercion, abuse or vulnerability, deception or other means for the purposes of exploitation.

(ix)         Different types of exploitation include sexual exploitation, forced labour, servitude, forced criminality/County Lines, financial exploitation, forced marriage, debt bondage and organ harvesting.

(x)          Further detailed information was provided on the different types of exploitation as what these entailed.

(xi)         The scale of modern slavery in the UK is significant. Modern slavery crimes are being committed across the country and there has been year on year increases in the number of victims identified.

(xii)        Met Police stats were provided. Unfortunately, however the actual figures will never really be known as this crime is often under reported with many potentially not even realising that they are victims of Modern Slavery.

(xiii)       Further information was provided on the top 10 nationalities reported as victims of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking in the UK, with UK (34%-3560), Albanian (15%-1638) and Vietnamese (6%-653) nationals the most commonly reported potential victims.

(xiv)      With UK nationals, labour exploitation in adults and criminal exploitation in children is the most common. With regards to gender breakdown, males are used mostly for labour exploitation, females for sexual exploitation and children for criminal exploitation (county lines)

(xv)       In Enfield the picture is different from that of national level re types of reported cases. The biggest form of referred cases of human trafficking is for the purpose of sexual exploitation (71%) followed by domestic servitude (16%) and forced labour at 13%.

(xvi)      A case study was shown of a Modern Slavery raid that had taken place in Enfield at Tile Kiln Farm where concerns had been raised regarding possible labour exploitation and organised crime links. A year long joint Police and Modern Slavery Team investigation had taken place. Over 100 professionals were involved in the planned raid including Police, HMRC, Modern Slavery Team, Business Rates, Enviro Health, Food Hygiene, Immigration, London Fire Brigade, London Ambulance Service, National Crime Agency and the Salvation Army.

(xvii)     The Modern Slavery Team had supported Police with intelligence gathering prior to the raid and had supported coordination of a reception centre in preparation for the day of the raid. There had also been Multi-agency intelligence sharing.

(xviii)    A Police led raid had been executed in July 2020 as a result of which 11 potential victims had been identified as being potential victims of labour exploitation. £75,000 cash had been recovered from the premises, evidence was found of multi-million-pound crypto currency related illegal activity and three individuals had been arrested during the raid.

 

The Chair thanked Emine for her informative presentation and the following questions/comments were raised:

 

·         The Chair commented that some arranged marriages are not by consent. Therefore, does work take place around forced marriages/domestic abuse?

Emine advised that her team work closely with the Domestic Abuse Co-ordinator from within the Community Safety Team.

 

·         Sheila Stacey referred to the Case Study on Tile Kiln Farm and felt that a year long investigation was a considerable time for the potential victims of Modern Slavery. Superintendent Chris Jones explained that prolonged surveillance had taken place to ensure there were no forearms/drugs at the premises and essentially this period was needed to ensure that there was enough intelligence in place to catch ‘Mr Big’.