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Coronavirus lockdown halts surge in UK slavery

<span>Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA</span>
Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

The number of suspected modern slavery victims identified in the UK has fallen for the first time in four years due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Home Office has said.

Officials said the decrease “is understood to have been influenced by the effects of restrictions implemented in the UK as part of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic”.

The UK’s national referral mechanism (NRM), the official system through which victims of modern slavery are identified and provided with support, received 2,871 referrals of potential victims in the first quarter of 2020 – a 14% fall from the previous three months. This is the first quarter-on-quarter fall since 2016.

Travel restrictions by other countries on people coming to the UK, increasing numbers of people self-isolating and businesses shutting after the lockdown on 23 March are understood to be some of the factors behind the decline.

Ministers have said people referred through the NRM will continue to be able to access support and government-funded accommodation through the pandemic.

Potential victims would usually be assisted to find new accommodation after 45 days, but will be able to remain for three months to protect them from Covid-19.

Related: Anti-slavery tsar calls for councils to take on child trafficking cases

Last year, the number of suspected modern slavery victims in the UK hit a record high, with more than 10,000 potential victims of trafficking, slavery and forced labour identified.

While referrals in 2020 have fallen compared with the previous quarter, they are still up by 33% from the first quarter of 2019, when there were 2,154 referrals.

Of the 2,871 potential victims, 61% (1,737) said they had been exploited in the UK, while a quarter (755) said this took place overseas.

Labour exploitation was most commonly reported by adults, the majority of whom were male.

For suspected child victims, criminal exploitation was most common, which the Home Office said was “partially driven” by an increase in the identification of county lines drugs cases.

UK nationals accounted for a quarter (756) of all potential victims referred.

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, Christine Jardine, said: “The extent of modern slavery here in the UK is shocking. As coronavirus has spread, so has modern slavery yet the government is failing to act on this rise we have seen since last year.

“The fact that some of the most vulnerable in our society are being left at risk shows the urgent need for the government to act.”