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Understanding modern slavery and what you can do

Unseen’s new free explainer guides help you understand, spot and respond to different forms of exploitation. Download the guides to become informed, confident, and empowered to help end modern slavery.

Sign up for our newsletter and download our free explainer guides. Join the fight to end modern slavery today.

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Modern slavery affects more people than you may realise: 130,000 people in the UK are stuck in situations of exploitation. You are likely unknowingly encountering exploitation within your everyday life. Whether it’s the people serving you your morning coffee, the construction workers you pass on your way to work, or those being exploited behind closed doors that you may never see, modern slavery often hides in plain sight making it difficult to spot and address. 

Unseen is a UK anti-slavery charity dedicated to ending modern slavery by tackling exploitation at every level. Including running the Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline, we provide frontline support services for victims and survivors, while also addressing the wider systemic root causes of the issue by working with individuals, communities, business, governments, other charities and statutory agencies to stamp out slavery for good.   

In many cases, modern slavery can seem like a nuanced and complex issue to grasp. These unique explainer guides are created specifically for you to:  

  • Understand what modern slavery is and what it looks like within the UK. 
  • Understand who modern slavery affects. 
  • Spot the signs of various kinds of exploitation.  
  • Learn what action you can take to help eradicate modern slavery. 
  • Learn about complex systems like the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the government framework for identifying and supporting survivors 
  • Read stories from survivors of exploitation and understand what the journey to recovery looks like.

     

By accessing these guides, you can become not only informed on modern slavery, but confident and empowered to recognise injustice happening around you and contribute meaningfully to tackling it. You become part of the solution. 

By completing the form above, you will receive three guides: 

  • Understanding modern slavery, which will be emailed to you instantly. 
  • Spot the signs of modern slavery, which will be sent to you two weeks later. 
  • A survivor’s journey, which will be sent to you two weeks later.

     

You can unsubscribe at any time. 

Our vision is a world without slavery. We want to transform society’s response to modern slavery so all can live in a world free from such abuse and exploitation. It is only through the education of society and its institutions that modern slavery will be truly seen, understood, and eradicated. 

For more information and any questions, please email [email protected] 

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Justine Currell

As I came to understand more about the issue, including through a visit to an Unseen safehouse, I knew I needed to do more to stop this abuse and exploitation.

For the last five years of my Civil Service career, I was the Modern Slavery Senior Policy Advisor in the Home Office and led on development of the Modern Slavery Act, including the transparency in supply chains provision and business guidance.

I joined Unseen to lead the development of the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline, and Unseen’s work with businesses. I am regularly called upon to present at national and international conferences and use my experience of working with Ministers to influence other governments internationally to take action to address modern slavery and, in particular, business supply chain issues.

In my spare time I enjoy keeping fit, music, reading and travelling.

Andrew Wallis

What ultimately compelled me to act was a report on how people from Eastern Europe were being trafficked through Bristol airport to the USA. Kate Garbers, who went on to be an Unseen Director, and I wrote to all the city councillors, MPs and the Police Chief Constable challenging them on the issue. The challenge came back to us: this city needs safe housing for trafficked women. And so Unseen began.

But we never wanted Unseen to be just about safe housing. We wanted to end slavery once and for all, and that remains our driving focus.

I chaired the working group for the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark report “It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to Fight Modern Slavery”. This is now acknowledged as the catalyst behind the UK’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015. It was a great honour to be awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours that year. On the other hand, I’ve also been described as “the loveliest disrupter you could ever hope to meet”.

This job has taken me from building flat-pack furniture for safehouses, to working with businesses to address slavery in supply chains, to delivering training, raising awareness and advising governments around the world.

When not at work, I enjoy travelling, spending time with my dog Harley, cooking, supporting Liverpool and Yorkshire CC, music (I’m a former DJ) and endurance events such as the Three Peaks Challenge and Tribe Freedom Runs – which I vow never to do again. Until the next time.