UK Government Recorded 17,000 Referrals for Modern Slavery Last Year

(Worthy News) – As modern slavery increasingly makes headlines in Europe, the government of the United Kingdom stated in a report earlier this year that the country saw 17,004 potential victims of modern slavery in 2023, with the numbers for child and female potential victims at their highest on record.

Titled “Modern Slavery: National Referral Mechanism and Duty to Notify Statistics UK, End of Year Summary 2023,” the report was released by the UK government’s Home Office on March 7, 2024.

The report showed that the number of referrals for modern slavery in the UK increased slightly in 2023 from 16,921 in 2022. Nevertheless, the report authors noted, the figure of 17,004 for 2023 was “ the highest annual number since the National Referral Mechanism began in 2009.”

Other key findings from the report include:

• • “The number of referrals for females (24%; 4,088) were at their highest on record, whereas the number of referrals for males (76%; 12,903) saw a fall from the previous year;
  • The number of referrals for child potential victims (44%; 7,432) was at their highest on record, whereas the number for adult potential victims (51%; 8,622) saw a decrease from the previous year;
  • The most common nationality referred this year was the UK (25%; 4,299), whose numbers were at their highest for any year since the NRM began; the second most commonly referred nationality was Albanian (24%; 4,052) and third was Vietnamese (6%; 991);

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