Journal study: Human Trafficking and the UK Modern Slavery Bill

This article was written by Gary Craig, is titled Human Trafficking and the UK Modern Slavery Bill and was published in 2015. The aforementioned bill is the first of its kind in over 200 years by the UK government. This particular bill was something I found out about during my visit to the Houses of Parliament last month. The paper discusses how the UK government have finally woken up to the fact that slavery still exists, not just in lands over the other side of the world but also here in the UK. Slavery has evolved, it has become more of an underground organised crime rather than the historical state ran versions we have seen portrait in art, novels or movies of more modern times. Examples are given such as the 23 Chinese cockle pickers who drowned off the English coast in 2004. New forms of slavery such as the workers imprisoned within cannabis factories, forced begging and theft or trafficking for organ harvesting are touched upon. These types of issues show the diversity and change within such a sordid trade. The paper delves into the issues in passing such a bill, the debates about the content, understanding of the matters involved and conclude that it will provide a focus for further debate and improvements on the issue. This paper again highlights to me why this project is of importance, the issue is something the UK government have been debated for the last few years prior to enacting this new bill. The new forms of slavery discussed should be shown in my work although my challenge might be to somehow still keep them slightly concealed as they are in real life. The UK Modern Slavery Bill is something that is available to anyone, I have downloaded a copy to see what is contained within and see how this may affect my project. Extracts from the paper and the first contents page of the UK Modern Slavery Bill are shown below.