6/14/2018

*TRAFFICKERS -BRITAIN'S- VULNERABLE*


BRITAIN RECORDED 2,255 slavery offences across England and Wales last year, a 159 percent increase from the previous year.

"People often get picked up when they are hanging around, either at hostels or soup kitchens,'' said Anne Read, an anti-trafficking response coordinator for the Salvation Army, a charity that manages the government support system for adult victims.

''And, of course, now there is the Internet, which enables predators to enter people's homes,'' she added.

That is how the teenager met her captor more than a year ago, through a messaging app on her phone. And this is how the story unfolds.

It was during the school holidays last year, the teenager disappeared. It was not until seven months later, after her mother said she had resigned herself to the fact that her daughter might be dead, that a detective told her she had been kidnapped and enslaved.

''Enslaved?'' the mother, whose identity is also being concealed to protect her daughter, recalled asking the officer.

''I just kept repeating that word. i didn't understand it,'' she said in a London park where she often goes to try to manage a  panic disorder that developed after daughter's disappearance.

During the month when her daughter was missing, ''I thought about every possible scenario that could have happened to her,'' her mother said.

''But slavery? I didn't even know that happened in England.

Britain recorded 2,255 slavery offenses across England and Wales last year, a 159 percent increase from the previous year.

According to the government commission, the rise suggests that, while slavery might be increasing, so is awareness among the police and public. One report also said that different agencies were were cooperating better.

But a recent inspection of police practice found significant deficiencies and inconsistencies that left many victims exposed and vulnerable to further exploitation.

''Victims who come into contact with the police are not always recognized as such and therefore remain in the hands of those who are exploiting them.

Others are arrested as offenders or illegal immigrants,'' the British Inspectorate of Constabulary and  Fire and Rescue Services found.

Analysts say that some of the most vulnerable people are those who depend on welfare and lack family life and support.

As a result, they are easily influenced by people who suddenly appear in their lives.

The Honor and Sad serving of Global Operational Research on Slavery, Trafficking and Justice continues to Part 2.

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