Unseen is a UK-based anti-slavery charity, founded in 2008, working towards a world without slavery. Unseen provides safehouses and support in the community for survivors of human trafficking and modern slavery. The charity also runs the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline and works with individuals, communities, business, governments, statutory agencies and other charities across various sectors in the fight to end slavery for good. Unseen was founded by Kate Garbers and its current CEO Andrew Wallis. [1]
Unseen's approach to fighting modern slavery is to tackle it from all sides – both the causes and the symptoms. Unseen provides specialist care for survivors of human trafficking and exploitation, including emergency safehouse accommodation and outreach support in order to rebuild safe and productive lives in the community. [2]
Unseen's business services are designed to help companies address labour abuse and exploitation in their supply chains and their operations, as well as manage future risks. [3] In 2020 Unseen stepped up the marketing of their business services – which now includes consultancy and exclusive modern slavery reports via their Business Portal.
Unseen’s Business Portal gives businesses access to information they receive about cases of abuse and labour exploitation related to their business or sector. [4]
Among those that have joined the list of businesses working with Unseen are Sainsbury's, [5] Aldi, PMP Recruitment and the Wellcome Trust. [6]
Unseen provides training to businesses and other organisations, such as statutory agencies, working to prevent modern slavery or supporting survivors. [7]
In addition to making people more aware of modern slavery and how to spot the signs, their training encourages participants to discuss areas of risk in their business operations, explore mitigation and remediation strategies, and examine ways to improve and strengthen their overall approach.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, much of Unseen's scheduled face-to-face training for 2020 was postponed or cancelled. As a result, Unseen expanded their e-learning programmes and now has e-learning courses ranging from general training on modern slavery, training for First Responders, and training for procurement specialists. The charity also has sector-specific e-learning packages aimed at industries such construction, finance, food and agriculture. [8]
The Anti-Slavery Partnerships’ (ASP) mission is to support and enable the discovery of, and response to, incidents of human trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation. The Partnerships do this through a victim-centred, multi-agency and collaborative effort at both a local and regional level. [9]
Unseen founded the South West Regional, [10] Bedfordshire and Eastern Region ASPs, and continues to coordinate and chair them. [11]
Unseen's advocacy work aims to influence legislation, policy and consumer practices - from producing studies on new issues that they have identified, to presenting at conferences, seminars and other events; from working with the UK government, and raising awareness of modern slavery issues in the media.
The UK-wide Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline is a confidential and independent helpline providing information, advice and guidance on any modern slavery issue to potential victims, businesses, statutory agencies and the public. It is an important part of both their support work and their influence work. [12]
Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the Helpline takes calls from across the UK and in some circumstances internationally. It does not receive Government funding.
The Helpline can liaise with callers in more than 200 languages. Callers who are potential victims are offered help to connect with law enforcement agencies to get out of a situation of exploitation and stay safe.
In July 2018, Unseen launched the Unseen App, allowing smartphone users to download the free app, enabling them to understand the types of modern slavery, spot the signs and report it to the Helpline. [13]
2013 Centre for Social Justice Award [14]
2015 Charity Times Charity of the Year Award [15]
2018 GSK IMPACT Award [16]
2019 Campaign for Good Awards - Winner, Best Equality and Inclusion Campaign [17]
Migrant Help is a United Kingdom-based national charity that has been supporting migrants since 1963.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts, usually non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
STOP THE TRAFFIK was founded in 2006 by Steve Chalke MBE as a campaign coalition which aims to bring an end to human trafficking worldwide. Initially STOP THE TRAFFIK was set up as a two-year campaign to coincide with the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807. The campaign intended to:
Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to occur in present-day society. Estimates of the number of enslaved people today range from around 38 million to 46 million, depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of slavery being used. The estimated number of enslaved people is debated, as there is no universally agreed definition of modern slavery; those in slavery are often difficult to identify, and adequate statistics are often not available. The International Labour Organization estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in some form of slavery today. 24.9 million people are in forced labor, of whom 16 million people are exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture; 4.8 million persons in forced sexual exploitation, and 4 million persons in forced labour imposed by state authorities. An additional 15.4 million people are in forced marriages.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, especially women and children, and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another.
Human trafficking in Australia is illegal under Divisions 270 and 271 of the Criminal Code (Cth). In September 2005, Australia ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplemented the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Amendments to the Criminal Code were made in 2005 to implement the Protocol.
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) is a Los Angeles-based anti-human trafficking organization. Through legal, social, and advocacy services, CAST helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking, raises awareness, and affects legislation and public policy surrounding human trafficking.
Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery, with illegal smuggling and trading of people, for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) is a multi-stakeholder initiative providing global access to expertise, knowledge and innovative partnerships to combat human trafficking.
ECPAT International is a global network of civil society organisations that works to end the sexual exploitation of children. It focuses on halting the online sexual exploitation of children, the trafficking of children for sexual purposes and the sexual exploitation of children in the travel and tourism industry.
City Hearts is a charity that houses and helps women with life controlling issues and victims of human trafficking in the UK, and runs education programmes in Ghana, Africa. It is an initiative of Hope City Enterprise, a registered charity and the umbrella organisation for the community initiatives of Hope City Church The head office is located in The Megacentre, Sheffield, with anti-trafficking teams offering support and accommodation in Sheffield, Liverpool and across the North East UK.
Hope for Justice is a global non-profit organisation which aims to end human trafficking and modern slavery. It is active in the United Kingdom, United States, Cambodia, Norway, Australia, Ethiopia and Uganda and has its headquarters in Manchester, England.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is designed to combat modern slavery in the UK and consolidates previous offences relating to trafficking and slavery. The act extends essentially to England and Wales, but some provisions apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Missing Link Trust is a nonprofit organization that uses art and educational campaigns to raise awareness and prevent child sex trafficking. Their work includes public sculpture installations, stencil campaigns, the interactive video game Missing: Game for a Cause, and the interactive online comic Web of Deceit - A missing and trafficking casefile. The organization was awarded the 2021 Stop Slavery Campaigns Award from the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Kate Garbers is a founder and former managing director of the Bristol, UK-based anti-slavery organisation and charity Unseen. She has developed projects to support survivors of slavery, and assists and advises survivors. She also works with law enforcement agencies and governments on how to tackle trafficking, including contributing to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the National Referral Mechanism Review.
Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China. China, the world's most populous country, has the second highest number of human trafficking victims in the world. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.
After Exploitation is a UK-based non-profit organisation using investigative methods to track the unpublished outcomes of modern slavery survivors. The group uses Freedom of Information requests to collate cases of wrongful deportation, detention, and failures by agencies to refer slavery victims for support.
Parosha Chandran is a Professor of Practice in Modern Slavery Law in The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London. She is also a human rights barrister at One Pump Court and an expert advisor on human trafficking law for the United Nations and the Council of Europe.
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom proposed in July 2021 relating to immigration, asylum and the UK's modern slavery response. The Act also deals with British overseas territories citizenship, registration of stateless citizens. Amongst other elements, it proposes to introduce "designated places" or "offshore" asylum hubs for application of refugee and migrant asylum claims, potentially in another European country or an African country. Part 5 of the Bill grants the Government new powers to limit who is considered a victim of modern slavery, with clauses limiting support in cases where survivors have not complied with State-set deadlines to disclose their abuse. Under Part 5, decision makers would also be asked to consider the survivors' criminal history before deeming them eligible for support.
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