Medaille Trust calls for withdrawal of modern slavery provisions of Immigration and Asylum Bill

Medaille Trust, one of the leading providers of modern slavery support services in the UK, have called for the withdrawal of proposed modern slavery legislation in the government's Immigration and Asylum Bill.

Medaille Trust CEO Dani Wardman said: "the proposed legislation undermines the recovery of vulnerable survivors, risks excluding victims from desperately needed support and fails to address the root causes preventing survivors attaining justice."

The Immigration and Asylum Bill seeks to change the way in which potential victims are assessed, introducing new credibility criteria which are likely to exclude many legitimate victims and removing support from others.

Medaille Trust has consistently campaigned with others across the sector for reforms that will bring trauma-informed practice into assessment and prioritise long-term recovery and justice for survivors. The Immigration and Asylum Bill continues a damaging trend of conflating trafficking and modern slavery victims with concerns over irregular migration.

The full statement follows:

Medaille Trust response to Immigration and Asylum Bill

Medaille Trust calls on the government to withdraw the modern slavery provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Bill. The bill as it stands undermines the recovery of vulnerable survivors, risks excluding victims from desperately needed support and fails to address the root causes preventing survivors attaining justice.

We are disappointed that commitments to trauma-informed policy and commitments to survivors have not been delivered. Instead of reforms focused on meeting the needs of survivors and building their long-term recovery, this bill continues a trend of government putting ever greater barriers in the path of survivors in order to route out alleged abuses of the system for which little evidence has ever been presented. The bill is a missed opportunity to reform and improve vital support systems and will be to the detriment of many survivors.

We are especially concerned by proposals which undermine the recovery of survivors and restrict support based on a tightened definition of credibility and public order.

Our experience of working with traumatised people in this space as a first responder and support provider is that it often takes time, trust and support before victims are able to accurately piece together the whole story of their exploitation and process the evidence that might be required. Anybody who works with traumatised people knows that recovery is not linear and that inaccuracies and inconsistencies in stories are a natural response to trauma that take time to work through. The system as it stands today is often re-traumatising and treats potential victims with an attitude of suspicion as if they are on trial for a crime rather than seeking help and support. The proposed changes to credibility grounds (clause 36) risk embedding this further, dismissing legitimate cases without due regard to the realities of trauma and the difficulties of presenting evidence.

We are further concerned by measures that seek to disqualify people from support on the basis of an extremely broadly defined definition of public order and bad faith (clause 38). Many of the people with which we work have been exposed to criminal exploitation where they have engaged in illegal activity as part of their exploitation. Too few of such victims receive proper defence in court, and it is a sad fact that there are far more victims of modern slavery in our prisons than there are exploiters and human traffickers. Excluding these victims from support on the grounds of public order is neither proportionate, nor just.

Finally, we note that there are several proposed measures which explicitly de-prioritise recovery and the right to a recovery period (as guaranteed in the ECAT to which the UK remains a signatory) in favour of swifter removal and deportation. Clause 39 would remove the duty to grant leave to remain to assist recovery. Leave to remain for the purposes of recovery was already extremely difficult to access in practice, but can play a crucial role in allowing a survivor time to recover, providing a period of stability after what is often a highly traumatic process. Removing this provision de-prioritises the recovery and support of survivors. Uncertainty over migration status and a lack of focus on longer-term recovery have significant impacts on survivors and are serious weaknesses in the UK approach. A system that is serious about being on the side of survivors would prioritise a sense of safety and support, not be looking to remove provisions that can assist with that.

Relatedly the removal of recovery period for those receiving a negative conclusive grounds decision (clause 37) creates unnecessary uncertainty and risk. Last year saw a welcome increase in the speed at which the Home Office processed modern slavery claims, with many decisions now being made extremely quickly. However, it also saw a record number of reconsiderations (appeals) against those decisions, which had an extremely high success rate.

Modern slavery cases are often complex and evidence can be hard to attain. The reconsideration process is crucial in ensuring that decisions are made correctly. We are concerned that the immediate removal of the recovery period and the related entitlements to legal support and accommodation will undermine the ability of people to be properly supported to have their claim heard and may lead to people being left in vulnerable situations without access to legal support or housing. This could create a cohort of people at risk of exploitation without adequate support. The 30-day recovery period is already a very short period of time to build rapport and establish the full facts of a potential case. Even in those cases where someone is not found to be a legitimate victim, 30 days is not a long period to wait before recommencing a removals process. The danger to potential victims is more significant than the small additional expediency this would provide in removals.

We hope that the government will take the opportunity to look again at this bill, withdraw the current modern slavery provisions and seek reforms that place the recovery and support for survivors at the heart of the system.

Medaille Trust is one of the UK's leading providers of modern slavery survivor support services and one of the largest Catholic charities in the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery. We work to support more than 500 survivors a year through safe house and outreach projects in addition to awareness raising in the UK, prevention work in Albania, and pursuit work that helps survivors to engage with police and the justice system to secure convictions against their abusers.

LINK

Medaille Trust: www.medaille-trust.org.uk