The number of victims found trafficked in the UK is up 30 per cent. Home Affairs Correspondent Simon Israel meets one man who is being helped to rebuild his life after an escape from servitude.
There’s been a 30 per cent increase in the number of victims found trafficked in the UK.
Just under a thousand were discoverd in 2011, with one third being children.
During the first year of the revised support service, overseen by the Salvation Army, close to 400 victims were looked after in a network of 19 safehouses in England and Wales. They include 222 women and 156 men almost half trafficked for sex, the other for slave labour. One victim was brought to the UK for organ harvesting.
Most victims came from Nigeria, Vietnam and Eastern Europe. But as there are also a number trafficking from within the UK.
Police raids last year in Bedfordshire uncovered a slave trade operating within travellers’ sites.
Mike had been rescued in one of those police raids after three years in servitude.
I met Mike in a safe house on the south coast.
We sit in a room with nothing with nothing else in it except a panic phone. No pictures, no plants, no books, nothing. It’s deliberate, for that is what a rescued trafficking victim needs to recuperate; a roomful of nothing.
“I was working, but when the financial crisis happened I lost my job and began sleeping rough. These men came up to me and said they could give me a place to live and a job. I thought it was a good opportunity, so I moved to a caravan site.
“It was just an old dirty shed, with hardly any space to move around.
“Every day I would start work at 7am and get back at around 9pm. “I was knocking on people’s doors asking if they wanted any work done, and doing groundwork – digging patios, making driveways.
“We worked six days a week. I heard one person had tried to escape but he was beaten up with a spanner. We were all too scared to leave.”
“When I looked around at us all, I realised how ill everyone looked – really skinny, really unwell. It was horrible. I was really frightened because I knew I didn’t want to go back.
“The Salvation Army found me some emergency accommodation at a safe house. For the first two months someone came and talked to me every day to find out how I was doing. I went to the doctor, and I had counselling. They made sure everything was fine”
But he is haunted by memories of his captivity. He talks with a nervous edge. Tears well up in his eyes.
But he sees the interview as part of the process of returning to normal life. Little by little he’s getting used to going out on his own. The sight of white vans, the sound of a diesel engine, the slamming of a van door, all serve to trigger those fears.
“I am still nervous about being outside but I am really happy. I’ve started doing some voluntary work two days a week, doing admin. It’s a great feeling. I’d like to find a job in an office. I am living in a housing association flat, but I’d like to find myself a one bedroom flat of my own. “