The Modern Slavery Act - Ten Years in Review
- Zara Taylor
- Apr 9
- 4 min read
This year marks ten years since the passage of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Hailed as ground-breaking at the time and remains one of only two dedicated Modern Slavery Acts worldwide (nod to Australia).
The UK Act defined policy and practice on modern slavery for the next decade. Ten years on, our systems to identify and support survivors are creaking under pressure, prosecution rates are remarkably low, public awareness remains patchy at best, and prevention is still poorly understood and implemented.
So, now is the perfect time to reflect on the efficacy of the Act, and to this end on Wednesday March 5th the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (MSPEC) at the University of Oxford hosted the conference ‘Ten years on from the Modern Slavery Act: Where next for modern slavery law and policy?’
Wow what an inspiring day!
The conference brought together the worlds of policy, research, business, and lived experience on several panels of speakers, including a hard-hitting keynote from the Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips MP, and lived experience evidence from Ake Achi (Migrants at Work) who is a survivor of child labour abuse in Cote D’Ivoire and the UK.
My key takeaways:
Referrals to the National Referral Mechanism in the UK are up by 300% since the Act’s launch in 2015; of those referrals, a third are involving children
Modern slavery has slipped down the global agenda and is being further impacted by cuts to aid and the rise of threats to survivor support, for example calls to exit the ECHR
Under Section 54 of the Act, the requirement for businesses with a turnover of >£38m to publish an annual modern slavery statement finally got the topic into boardrooms and in front of CEOs
The term ‘modern slavery’ is divisive – the word ‘modern’ makes it distinct from the transatlantic slave trade that most people associate with the word slavery, but is it any different in reality?
Lived Experience of Modern Slavery is not just the experience of the slavery itself (the so-called ‘trauma porn’), but also the experience of getting out: navigating the bureaucratic system, trying to get a job and accommodation, and avoiding the very real risk of being re-exploited
It is imperative that people with Lived Experience are involved in the work to improve and shape policies and systems – they are not just walking stories, they have the expertise and experience needed to get the right trauma-informed solutions in place
The keynote speaker for the day was Jess Phillips MP, Minister of Safeguarding. Modern slavery now falls under the remit of her office, and she reiterated the importance of using the experience of survivors to shape policy. Current processes are bureaucratic, cruel and unnecessary, where they should be nuanced, compassionate and caring. It was clear that Jess Phillips has a huge amount of experience in the areas of domestic violence and human rights and is passionate about making real actionable change in our modern slavery policies.
She is currently in the process of creating a new modern slavery action plan, due to be communicated in Spring 2025, in the last 6 months the backlog to process cases has been reduced by 40% to half of what it was in 2022, and the focus has shifted to the criminal justice piece, and enforcement mechanisms – giving the Act more authority.
It is a requirement of a business with a turnover >£38m to publish a Modern Slavery Statement every year since 2016 To write and publish a statement is a bare minimum requirement of the Act, and yet I was shocked to hear that many obliged businesses don’t even publish a basic “we do not agree with modern slavery” type statement, they publish absolutely nothing. And there are no repercussions for those businesses.
As the Act itself says, and as one of the speakers Baroness Young reiterated, it is not acceptable to say “we didn’t know” about slavery in our supply chains – we are expected to know, and act. Chasing the lowest price, getting the cheapest deal, and ignoring that nagging doubt about “how can they do it at that price?” – the answer is almost always in the labour, and at the cost of the welfare, safety and dignity of the workers involved.
In summary, an uplifting, insightful and very hopeful day, despite the shifting sands of the current global landscape.
Notes: Other speakers included Dame Sara Thornton (previous the UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner), Baroness Lola Young, Chris Murray MP, Giles Bolton (ETI), Sophie Otiende (founder of the first survivor-led collectives in Kenya Azadi and former CEO of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery), Debbie Ariyo (BASNET, AFRUCA), Minh Dang (Rights Lab and Survivor Alliance), Patricia Durr (ECPAT UK), Ligia Teixeira (Centre for Homelessness Impact), Prof Anita Franklin (Manchester Metropolitan University), Prof Patricia Hynes (Sheffield Hallam University), Dr Marija Jovanovic (Bonavero Institute for Human Rights at the University of Oxford), Aine Clarke (BHRRC), Dr Sofia Gonzalez de Aguinaga, (Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, BIICL), Dr Wendy Asquith (Liverpool University), Dr Gillian Kane (Ulster University) and Wanjiku Mbugua (BAWSO).
Zara Taylor is the Head of Wholesale & Supply at Interflora.
She has worked in flowers since 2010, first at Flamingo Horticulture, then at Interflora. Zara recently completed Cambridge University’s CISL course on Sustainable Business Management, and has a real personal passion for living a positive, minimal impact lifestyle.
