HUMAN TRAFFICKING WATCH · DISPATCH
After the King’s Speech: Narrowed Protections
Anti-Slavery International warns UK priorities risk sidelining survivors and supply-chain accountability.
In a response to the King’s Speech, Anti-Slavery International warned that policy signals risk deepening disbelief toward survivors, narrowing access to the National Referral Mechanism, and leaving supply-chain exploitation unchecked.
On 13 May 2026, as ministers mapped priorities through the King’s Speech, Anti-Slavery International issued a measured but unsparing response, warning that official rhetoric about alleged abuse of the modern slavery system would harden disbelief toward the very people it was built to protect; they argued the frame should be survivor-centered and evidence-led, not suspicion-first, and that the Government must re-prioritise modern slavery as a policy area rather than an adjunct to immigration control, ensuring protection and support regardless of a person’s origin or migration route, because credibility, once eroded by insinuation, is slow to restore and quick to deny safety to those at risk (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
The organisation underscored the architecture of the National Referral Mechanism, a two-stage decision-making process designed with safeguards against misuse, and a high evidence burden that survivors carry to be identified and supported; they cautioned that public claims of widespread gaming do not square with the system’s procedural thresholds, and that narrowing eligibility or restricting entry would likely cut off individuals the mechanism was created to reach, a reversal that would also distort frontline practice by replacing assessment with disbelief, and process with gatekeeping, at the precise moment when protection should be expanded (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
Recent immigration enforcement policies, they said, had already made identification and support more unequal and more difficult to access, with consequences that fall heaviest on people navigating insecure status; in that context, proposed asylum system changes failed to account for how precarious residency amplifies vulnerability to exploitation, as fear of removal and administrative uncertainty can isolate workers, deter disclosure, and push survivors away from the services they need, so the risk calculus shifts toward traffickers’ leverage while the state’s protective intent recedes behind procedural barriers, a trajectory that policy can reverse only by removing those barriers and reaffirming safe pathways into assistance (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
On children, Anti-Slavery International welcomed early signals that the Bill might strengthen how the state identifies and supports child trafficking victims, a recognition that specialised needs require proactive safeguards and sustained care; yet they set that cautious welcome against concern that the Government had made no meaningful commitment to a comprehensive child exploitation strategy, the absence of which leaves services patchworked and reactive, without the coherence to prevent harm, ensure rapid identification, and guarantee consistent support across jurisdictions, so that outcomes for children hinge on chance rather than strategy, and the statutory duty to protect is fulfilled unevenly where it should be unwavering (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
Beyond immediate victim support, the statement turned to markets and responsibilities, arguing that the Modern Slavery Act 2015—important as a marker—had not, in practice, prevented modern slavery and exploitation in global supply chains; they called for stronger corporate accountability in UK law, urging a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act that would establish a clear, enforceable duty on companies to identify, prevent, and address human rights and environmental harms, paired with regulatory oversight, penalties for non-compliance, and access to remedies for affected people, because transparency without liability is disclosure without consequence, and consequence is what deters abuse upstream (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
The organisation also pressed for import controls to keep goods made with forced labour out of the UK market, a trade-side measure that would complement corporate due diligence and close the demand-side door to exploitation; they linked this border-facing stance with attention to domestic risk, referencing reports of exploitation among migrant agricultural workers on the Seasonal Worker Scheme, a reminder that the supply chain runs through fields at home as well as factories abroad, and that meaningful policy must knit together labour enforcement, safe reporting routes, and market restrictions to remove profit from coercion wherever it appears (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
In illustrating the gap between principle and practice, the statement pointed to cases where survivors were only referred into the National Referral Mechanism following inaction from the MET Police, an escalation pathway that should be exception rather than pattern; for Anti-Slavery International, such instances underscored the need for a coherent approach in which policing, immigration decision-making, and victim support align to the same protective standard, and for political leadership that halts policies which skew that alignment toward enforcement at the expense of safety, lest trust collapse at first contact (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
Taken together, the response framed a choice: whether post–King’s Speech legislation would narrow access and reduce accountability, or rebuild trust and close profit avenues; they urged the Government to re-prioritise modern slavery, protect and support survivors regardless of origin or migration route, strengthen identification for children, enact a due diligence law with enforcement and remedies, and adopt import controls against forced-labour goods, because the test of policy is not the speech that launches it but the survivor who can safely use it, and the worker whose exploitation it prevents (Silva & Silva, n.d.).
Locations: United Kingdom
Tags: policy, labor, international, survivor