Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking
The West Yorkshire Anti-Trafficking and Modern Slavery Network was established to provide a strategic meeting framework on behalf of the statutory, non-statutory and third sector organisations in West Yorkshire who contribute to tackling human trafficking and modern slavery in all its forms. The network supports sharing of information and collaboration between agencies/organisations in relation to human trafficking and victim care. Members include: West Yorkshire Police, Kirklees Community Safety Partnership (CSP), Hope for Justice, Invisible Traffick, Gangmasters Licensing Authority, Bradford CSP, Ashiana, Calderdale Council, Wakefield CSP, Leeds CSP. The SSI was invited to join the WYATMSN in 2016, and attends its quarterly meetings. Through the network the SSI have been approached to facilitate workshops for agencies and to collaborate on research in the fight against Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery.
An interdisciplinary approach to designing multi-platform messages to promote awareness and empower potential victims at ports entering the UK
Professor Rachel Armitage and Dr Dagmar Heinrich were invited to join West Yorkshire Police and South Yorkshire Police at a multi-agency Operation at Doncaster Robin Hood Airport in May and June 2016. This operation brought together police, border force and charities, such as Hope for Justice, Palm Cove and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, to provide information regarding modern slavery and human trafficking to people arriving in the UK on low cost airlines from Eastern Europe, a known route utilised by traffickers. The SSI were invited to observe, with the potential of providing advice regarding the operation logistics and the best means for providing and obtaining information to and from potential victims.
Following the Operation it was established that there were weaknesses in the current approach that could be vastly improved. The SSI is currently working with the partners involved on a research project to design multi-media messages which better convey the information needed by potential victims, will raise awareness and are better placed to be visible and accessible to people travelling through Doncaster Airport. The research will include elements of criminology and design, and will be implemented and tested, thus ensure a real-world application of this research.
Modern slavery: Identifying barriers and solutions to reporting
In the UK, while a steady rise of potential modern slavery, and human trafficking, victims over the last five years has been recorded, due to the crime's hidden and illegal nature, gathering exact numbers remains a constant problem. The SSI was approached by Kirklees Council, to assist them in conducting some research as to why people do not report these crimes, and support them to develop means of encouraging people to come forward with information. By equipping people to spot and report modern slavery, and gathering that information a clearer picture will begin to emerge. The current project, brings together expertise from across the SSI in criminology, crime science, designing out crime, psychology, policing, human trafficking, forced labour and exploitation and graphic design in an interdisciplinary study to examine people's barriers to reporting suspected human trafficking/modern slavery and design and develop a positive campaign by constructing innovative ways (i.e. implementable co-designed multi-platform messages such as flyers, posters, videos) to address these barriers. In addition to identifying barriers to reporting and ways of addressing them, this project will identify cultural perceptions and expectations across different groups in terms of support systems required to facilitate reporting and engaging with the community and provide a set of recommendations on how agencies can improve existing reporting mechanisms.
Modern slavery offenders: Risk factors, propensity and vulnerability
Although modern slavery, and human trafficking, is the fastest rising means by which people are enslaved and one of the largest sources of income for organised crime, little psychological research has attended to the theoretical underpinnings of this issue, particularly regarding background characteristics, propensity and vulnerability of offenders of human trafficking and modern slavery. The current research, therefore, aims to develop a risk profile, incorporating a range of risk factors, of human trafficking and modern slavery offenders by examining the personal characteristics and the conditions under which they have been drawn to this type of criminal activity. This research is in collaboration with the Kirklees Community Partnership and West Yorkshire Police Human Trafficking Team. The findings of the research will have significant theoretical implications for understanding this type of offending, but also practical implications in terms of prediction of risk, prioritisation of investigatory resources, intervention and preventative strategies and education.