How can we tackle human trafficking and modern slavery?

Slavery has been part of the human story for millennia since before written records were kept yet efforts to combat it have been part only of recent history. The problem of modern slavery is global so it needs a response from all states and, indeed, 99 of the 193 UN member states (about 51%) have enacted some form of criminal legislation prohibiting slavery but 94 countries (49%) have yet to fully criminalize it - so they do not explicitly criminalize slavery. Yet 185 states (96%) have international obligations to prohibit forced labour through the 1930 Forced Labour Convention or the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. While legal ownership of people was indeed abolished in all countries over the course of the last two centuries in many countries it has not been criminalised. In almost half of the world’s countries there is no criminal law penalising either slavery or the slave trade. In those 94 countries, you cannot be prosecuted and punished in a criminal court for enslaving another human being. On Human Trafficking while most countries have some anti-trafficking laws only a small percentage (less than 5% of the 175 studied) fully align their national laws with international definitions. 

This may seem incredible when in many countries, such as the UK, slavery was abolished some two hundred years ago but that is but a short moment in the whole history of humanity. We may find slavery abhorrent yet for much of the human story a conquered nation could expect its citizens to become slaves or there was a lucrative trade in human cargo. I still reel from those diagrams of slave ships showing their captives lined out in chains across the decks so as to maximise the use of space without sanitation, movement or proper provision of food and water – as commodities rather than human beings and any number could be lost as collateral damage in a trade where profits could allow a certain percentage to perish without overall financial loss.

The moves to repeal slavery laws in the nineteenth century was piecemeal and not universal. Perhaps many take as a milestone when the UK abolished the slave trade in 1807 through the Slave Trade Act but slavery itself was not outlawed across the British Empire until the Slavery Abolition Act, which took effect only in 1834 – less than two hundred years ago. Moreover, it took longer elsewhere and still is not universally abolished.

The General Act of the Brussels Conference of 1889-90 declared the firm intention of putting an end to the traffic in African slaves. The Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (part of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference) affirmed the intention of securing the complete suppression of slavery in all its forms and of the slave trade by land and sea and the Temporary Slavery Commission was appointed by the Council of the League of Nations on 12 June 1924. 

In 1926, therefore, the League of Nations adopted the Slavery Convention, which required states to abolish any legislation allowing for slavery but the League lacked enforcement mechanisms as well as universal support, most notably lacking being the USA which after the First World War retreated into a state of isolationism (despite the efforts of its President Woodrow Wilson who was frustrated by Congress – sadly suffering a stroke in October 1919 that left him incapacitated). This changed after the second great conflagration of the 20^th century in 1948 when states were called upon to prohibit, rather than simply abolish, slavery. This more proactive approach meant that states had to enact legislation prohibiting enslavement rather than just abolishing existing laws. This was not an entirely humanitarian stimulus but more because property ownership of human beings had been abolished. We should recall that in the UK it was not until the Married Womens’ Property Act of 1882 that women on marriage ceased to be the chattels of their husbands. The downside of this change in property law was that, as human beings could no longer be owned by another, many states saw it as unnecessary to prohibit slavery as such. In India, indentured labour ie those owing money to a creditor becoming, in effect, an unpaid debtor working for the creditor continued until the last century. This form of slavery operates outside the criminal law which is often slow to catch up. In Mauritania, for example, legal slavery was abolished only since 1981.

Having domestic human trafficking legislation in place does not enable prosecution of forced labour, servitude or slavery as offences in domestic law. While the vast majority of states have domestic criminal provisions prohibiting trafficking, most have not yet looked beyond this to legislate against the full range of exploitation practices they have committed to prohibit.

Shockingly, as I have mentioned, less than 5% of the 175 states have undertaken legally-binding obligations to criminalise human trafficking and have fully aligned their national law with the international definition of trafficking. This is because they have narrowly interpreted what constitutes human trafficking, creating only partial criminalisation of slavery.

How is it that after centuries of so-called civilisation those advances in art, literature, architecture, philosophy, science and governance went mostly alongside slavery? Slavers even used religious texts to justify it. To us, in this modern age of equality, the concept of human dignity and human rights, slavery is abhorrent and difficult to comprehend as anything other than evil. Yet that fails to examine the mentality and attitudes towards slavery in times past. As I have explained, slaves were regarded as chattels, as property. Either through birth or adverse circumstances they had ceased to have the rights and dignity of others. They were not really people at all but goods to be traded, used and disposed of. It is only by getting into this mindset that we can begin to understand why slavery was not only tolerated but accepted as the norm for all those centuries. 

Perhaps the closest analogy is to equate slaves with the way many people now regard animals – to be used, killed for food and exploited although even this is not accurate as we have many protections for various animals. It always strikes me as slightly strange but indicative of attitudes that the RSPCA for the protection of animals, the oldest and largest animal welfare organisation in the world, was founded (1824) before the NSPCC, the organisation for the protection for children (1884). Indeed, it is difficult for us to find any exact analogy in which one species so denigrates and treats differently part of its own species yet that was the reality of slavery. Slavery becomes just another aspect of life once the slaves are treated as less than human or, as the Nazis termed it, “Untermensch.” It is chilling because it leads to genocide and the horror of the Holocaust.

Mercifully, because sophisticated attitudes have changed, we can now almost universally call it out for what it is. We need to remember, however, that the advance of civilisation around the world is not always at the same pace and that is why we have to confront those attitudes of acceptance and even promotion of the concept of slavery. Many of the perpetrators or promoters of slavery are not necessarily instilled with the knowledge that they are doing wrong – although that is increasingly difficult to justify unless you live in a bubble completely isolated from the rest of the world.

Let us do a reality check on where we are at present. As pointed out by Walk Free, the Global Slavery Index, although the highest prevalence of forced labour is found in low-income countries, it is deeply connected to demand from higher-income countries so we have a role to play in the UK. As we know, an estimated 50 million people are living in modern slavery, an increase of 10 million people since 2016. That figure splits into 11m in India, 5.8m in China, 2.6m in North Korea and 2.3m in Pakistan. 

While, properly, every nation will look at itself and its own practices as we in the UK acknowledge that modern slavery, trafficking for prostitution and unpaid labour is often under our very noses, we should not neglect the exposure and fight to end slavery in all its forms in other countries, especially in those where attitudes towards human rights are less liberal or advanced as our own. Those countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery, according to the 2023 Global Slavery Index, include North Korea, Eritrea, and Mauritania, characterized by widespread state-imposed forced labour and other exploitative practices. Other nations with high prevalence and significant risks are Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Russia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, often due to conflict, instability, or systemic governance failures. I should add China with the Uyghur, India with remaining indentured labour and Pakistan for the reasons above. 

Some of these are the usual suspects but some may come as a surprise. Maybe there is little we can do in closed countries such as North Korea or those with ongoing conflict such as Afghanistan and South Sudan but with others we should redouble our efforts at persuading those governments through our own FCDO diplomatic relations to eliminate such abuses. With many of those countries the UK has well-established diplomatic relations. Eritrea features because of state-imposed forced labour. Mauritania has a significant ongoing issue with hereditary slavery alongside forced labour. Pakistan has an unenviable history of forced marriages. The treatment of the Uyghur with a systematic attempt to remove their identity is regarded by some as a form of genocide. 

We must take initiatives alongside those of CCLA, the investment agency, with its Modern Slavery Global Benchmark update. In 2025, they reviewed the public disclosures of 111 globally listed companies to evaluate their approach to finding, fixing and preventing modern slavery. Their report details their findings from that benchmarking process. Although they are pleased to see the breadth of companies reporting in line with global human rights legislation, they acknowledge that they will only get so far with transparency legislation (such as the Modern Slavery Act) combined with investor pressure. To effectively reduce the numbers of people in forced labour around the world, a suite of policy tools is required. CCLA supports the conclusion of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that ‘there is currently a piecemeal and ad hoc approach to addressing forced labour using domestic policy.”

At Stop Human Trafficking Worldwide we have a four-point strategy which involves engaging with companies, whatever their turnover, whether suppliers of goods or services though direct contact with directors and Chief Executives, questions at their annual general meetings etc to ask them to investigate and publish that their supply lines are free from the taint of modern slavery; to engage with the general public to demand transparency in disclosure either on their website or on individual items and to boycott those suppliers that cannot provide satisfactory answers; to engage with other NGOs both nationally and internationally to ensure better co-ordination and avoidance of duplication of effort; and to engage with Parliamentarians and governments to ensure that such issues are given prominence and are an integral part of diplomatic and trade negotiations. We urge you to join in this enterprise.  We should be proud in the UK that in many respects we lead the world in our response but the purpose of my remarks above is to show that there is no one response that applies to all situations as they are so diverse. In our lobbying and public awareness efforts we must seek to encompass this by matching our response to the nature of the abuse in each country and never cease in our endeavours to eradicate this stain on humanity.

This article is based on a speech delivered by Keith Best, President of Stop Human Trafficking Worldwide.

Introduced as barrister & constitutional lawyer, former British Member of Parliament and Chief Executive of Freedom from Torture having served on the Foreign Secretary's Advisory Panel on the Prevention of Torture, Chair of Universal Peace Federation (UK), former Chair of the World Federalist Movement and major in airborne and commando forces.

Saturday 11 July 2026

Global Leadership Summit & Royal Charity Ball hosted in honour of HRH Princess Kendal Aminat, Winston Hall, Best Western Premier Dover Marina Hotel & Spa, Dover Waterfront, Waterloo Crescent, Dover, Kent, CT17 9BP