National Recognition for our work to combat Modern Slavery

The Humber Modern Slavery Partnership, supported by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) for Humberside, has been recognised in this year’s iESE Public Sector Transformation Awards, receiving a Certificate of Excellence in the category of ‘Working Together’ for our work to tackle Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking by prosecuting perpetrators, disrupting identified organised crime and supporting victims.

The Partnership was established in 2015, and has brought together key people across the Humber region to assess our understanding of, and response to, modern slavery. From this, they began the process of integrating a response into daily business across our public and private sectors, raising awareness with the public, training professionals and developing pathways of support for victims.

Modern slavery is an issue that affects every community and every religion, race, ethnicity, age and gender. From British teenagers groomed into selling drugs in return for a sense of family and belonging, to foreign nationals escaping poverty at home only to be deceived into sexual exploitation, to the homeless coerced into exploitative labour in return for a paltry salary, the perpetrators of modern slavery impose extreme suffering onto their victims entirely for monetary profit or personal benefit. Because it exists in so many forms (labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, domestic servitude and organ harvesting) and occurs on such a large scale (there are an estimated 40.3 million people living in modern slavery across the world), a single response from a single agency is simply not enough to efficiently or effectively tackle the complexities of modern slavery. As such, a partnership approach to the problem is the only solution that has the opportunity to be effective.

Bringing together over 60 statutory, non-statutory and third sector organisations, the Humber Modern Slavery Partnership recognised this issue, and initiated a platform for the sharing of information, the development and dissemination of training and the creation of effective, multi-agency responses that build upon the expertise of each individual organisation in order to best meet the needs of those suffering this extreme form of exploitation.

The OPCC for Humberside funds the post of Partnership Coordinator Andrew Smith, who said:

“For our partnership to be recognised at this year’s iESE Public Sector Transformation Awards is testament to the hard work and dedication by all of our partners in our collective and relentless pursuit of justice for victims, in building more resilient communities and holding perpetrators to account.

Across Humberside we are working hard to put prevention front and centre of our fight against modern slavery and human trafficking. By improving the skills and knowledge of our partners and frontline professionals, by empowering communities to spot the signs of this despicable crime and by using a collaborative public health approach to improve the lives of those who are at risk of being exploited, we are determined to make our region a safer place to live for all.

Local partnerships are the vanguard of the national fight against modern slavery. I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made in Humberside over recent years with the support of partners such as Humberside Police, Local Councils, our strong third sector partners and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner to name a few.

We enjoy a proud Anti-Slavery heritage, in no small part because of our beloved abolitionist William Wilberforce. From our prestigious Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull working to use research to inform practice locally and globally, our excellent young people’s project that supports exploited children, our dedicated modern slavery Police team to our frontline professionals and modern slavery champions that work tirelessly every day to safeguard at-risk adults and children, we truly have a partnership to be proud of.

Working together has enabled us to make significant progress in the fight against modern slavery in Humberside. We will continue to work together to ensure our response is robust and sustainable for many years to come. We are honoured to receive this recognition for the Humber Modern Slavery Partnership.”

Visit www.humberantislave.com/ for more information on the work of the Partnership.