Our history
Call the UK Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline on 08000 121 700
Unseen founded
Andrew Wallis and Kate Garbers set up Unseen, initially providing safe housing for survivors of modern slavery. Andrew becomes CEO and Kate Director. The founders were friends, and both had been on different journeys that came to the same conclusion: something must be done about modern slavery.
Says Andrew: “The actual catalyst for Unseen was a former colleague of mine who had returned from a trip to Ukraine.
“While in the country he had encountered trafficking and ended up helping a woman by paying off her potential trafficker – then reimbursing her for the money she thought she had lost because she had assumed she was going to a job in the US.
“Some months later Kate came to me with a story of child trafficking from orphanages where she had been volunteering, also in Ukraine.
“The third piece of the puzzle was coming across an article that talked about trafficking from Eastern Europe to the US, with traffickers using UK regional airports en route to the US, in order to avoid detection at the main hub airports. One of the airports was Bristol.
“This joined the dots in my head and led to a letter to councillors, MPs and the Chief Constable that ultimately led to a meeting with Steve Jeffries who was the senior police officer tasked with responding to my letter.
“That meeting was where Steve told me about the scale and nature of the problem both in Bristol and the UK.
“He challenged me to do more than write a letter; safe housing for modern slavery survivors was what was really needed.
“Kate then approached me about doing something about the issue of trafficking in the Ukraine, and following that discussion we started Unseen – meeting the immediate need for safe housing but also committing to working to end slavery. Steve was our new charity’s first trustee.”
The first Anti-Slavery Partnership
Women’s safehouse launched
Making political waves
Resettlement service
It Happens Here
Unseen winning awards
Modern Slavery Act
Helpline and Resource Centre
Working in partnership with BT, Unseen sets up the UK Modern Slavery Helpline and Resource Centre, which becomes the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline which we know today. By 2023 the Helpline has been contacted nearly 50,000 times through its phone lines, web forms and app. More than 30,000 potential victims of modern slavery have been indicated as a result.
“….. The Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline has continued to deliver essential guidance to those who are concerned about potential exploitation through intelligent and effective signposting and information. [Its] annual assessment report provides great data and useful insights into current and emerging areas of concern.
“The Helpline is a hugely valuable part of the UK’s response to the most egregious crimes.”
Going global
BT Tower
Let’s Nail It!
Children’s safehouse
Business and Unseen
Tech Against Trafficking
Winning in Europe
Covid-19
Coalition to Stop Slavery
Ukrainians Welcome
With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Unseen leads an award-winning initiative to provide online safety information to Ukrainian refugees arriving in the UK.
Such was the case in the Ukraine war that began in 2022, and Unseen led a coalition of NGOs in a major response to this.
This included building the ukrainianswelcome.org website and persuading Vodafone Ukraine to send a text message to all Ukrainians arriving in the UK, signposting them to the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline and the website.
We worked with fellow charities STOP THE TRAFFIK and Hope for Justice to distribute thousands of leaflets featuring the website to ports and other entry points, and to Ukrainian community groups across the UK.
Our work inspired the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to build a similar, pan-European website for Ukrainians and promote it on text messages in 30 European states.
As a result, more than 1.5 million Ukrainian people have received information on how to stay safe from exploitation.
Commonwealth Games
Unseen’s Helpline is central to an anti-slavery campaign at the Commonwealth Games, featuring top athletes Ellie Simmonds and Usain Bolt, among others.
Unseen teamed up with fellow charity It’s A Penalty and top athletes Usain Bolt, Ellie Simmonds, Cathy Freeman, Asha Philip, plus netball sisters Sasha and Kadeen Corbin, to raise awareness of human trafficking and promote our Helpline during the Games.
With the games reaching around 180 million people worldwide, this is an example of great partnership working as our Helpline had the chance to be seen by millions of households.
The athletes lent their voice to the campaign via a 30-second video shown on flights to and from the Birmingham games, and a series of posters distributed across the West Midlands.
