Case Studies

Between Two Fires

by Mark Rowe

Vulnerability to human trafficking and modern slavery is influenced by overlapping and interconnected risk factors which cut across individual, household, family, community and structural dynamics according to a new study. Over two years, the University of Bedfordshire and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an inter-governmental body, examined the dynamics and vulnerabilities to human trafficking for citizens of Albania, Vietnam and Nigeria, and the support needs of people who survived trafficking and are now in the UK.

Some 25 per cent of the 6,993 people who were referred into the UK’s National Referral Mechanism (NRM) in 2018 as potential victims of human trafficking were from Albania (947 people), Vietnam (702 people) and Nigeria (208 people).

According to the report, journeys often begin with rational decision-making which is based on limited or unreliable information about costs, length, dangers, legal requirements, alternatives, or situation en route and at destination. Once journeys begin, they can become progressively more precarious. Survivors voiced mixed views about the effectiveness of awareness raising, to put people off the road to being trafficked.

Patrick Burland, an IOM Senior Project Officer in London said: “Limited financial, educational, employment and healthcare services within communities create a mismatch between aspirations and realistic opportunities to improve standards of living in their countries. This leads people to make desperate decisions, often driving them into the hands of human traffickers.”

Dr Patricia Hynes from the University of Bedfordshire and Principal Investigator for the study said that the report’s title, Between Two Fires, came from a direct quote from a young Albanian woman describing how she had actively resisted the situation of vulnerability she found herself in but then ended up in a much more difficult and exploitative situation.

She said: “In the accounts we heard this was consistently the case, with people trying to resolve their own circumstances but then encountering structural and exploitative circumstances either en-route or in destination countries. It is important we understand these complex back stories and use this understanding to provide longer-term support to those requiring protection in the UK.”

For survivors supported in the UK, the report recommends more mental health and legal support, strengthening of detection and screening processes in the UK’s criminal justice system and reviewing policy issues. Key informants and trafficked persons in the UK stressed the negative impact of the waiting time of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and asylum system upon the well-being and recovery of trafficked persons.

For the full 123-page report and other details visit https://www.beds.ac.uk/trafficking.

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