This Statement sets out the London Borough of Bexley’s commitment to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking in Bexley and sets out our role and policies as a public sector organisation, together with our partners.

This Statement supports the approach set out in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, outlining our principles, policies, practices, and actions towards eliminating modern slavery and human trafficking in Bexley and beyond. We do this in partnership, and have four overarching goals:

1. Pursue: prosecute and disrupt individuals and groups responsible for modern slavery
2. Prevent: prevent people from engaging in modern slavery
3. Protect: strengthen safeguards against modern slavery by protecting vulnerable people from exploitation
4. Prepare: reduce the harm caused by modern slavery through improved victim identification and enforcement support.

More information can be found in our Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy and Toolkit.

• Reporting, advice and support

What is Modern Slavery?

The term ‘Modern Slavery’ is an umbrella term, encompassing:

1. Human trafficking: the movement of someone in some way, such as recruitment or organisation of someone’s journey, for the purpose of their intended or likely exploitation.
2. Slavery, Servitude and Forced or Compulsory Labour: exploitation by forcing someone to provide some service without their consent, and usually with some kind of threats or mistreatment.

Traffickers and slave drivers coerce, deceive and force individuals against their will into a life of abuse, servitude, and inhumane treatment. Many active organised crime groups are involved in modern slavery. But it is also committed by individual opportunistic perpetrators. There are different forms of exploitation, including:

• Forced Labour: being made to work for little or no money and/or without appropriate treatment.
• Sexual Exploitation: being coerced or forced into selling sex or acts of a sexual nature, including online pornography.
• Criminal Exploitation: being forced to break the law for someone else (e.g., stealing, selling drugs.)
  • ‘County Lines’ is the most common form of criminal exploitation, which involves organised criminal networks exploiting people to transport drugs between cities/towns using dedicated phone lines.
• ‘Cuckooing’ is now recognised as criminal exploitation, which involves taking over the properties of vulnerable to use as a base for criminal activity, such as drug cultivation, drug dealing, or sexual exploitation.
• Domestic Labour/Servitude: being made to work within a private home environment for little or no pay, such as housework or childcare.
• Financial Exploitation: the exploitation of someone’s finances or financial accounts, including cryptocurrency accounts. For example, money laundering.
  • ‘Debt Bondage’ is a debt created by the exploiter which the victim is made to work to pay off.
• Organ Harvesting: bodily organs being removed for financial gain or bodily gain of another.
• Forced/Early Marriage: being made to marry someone you don’t want to marry, or being made to marry before legal age, sometimes for a price.
• Slavery: the exploitation of someone who is ‘owned’ because they have been bought or traded for the purpose of their exploitation.
• Servitude: the exploitation of someone in conditions which are extremely difficult to identify or escape.
• Forced Surrogacy: involving a potential victim being forced or coerced into carrying a pregnancy for another individual.
• Kidnap for Ransom: the unlawful taking and holding of a person against their will, often to demand a ransom payment for their release. 

In 2024, 19,125 potential victims of Modern Slavery were referred to the Home Office nationally, representing a 13% increase compared to the preceding year (16,990 referrals.) The number of referrals in 2024 is the highest in a year, since the NRM began. 56% of Conclusive Grounds decision were Positive, meaning that they were found to be victims of Modern Slavery.  However, 17,168 cases with a Positive Reasonable Grounds decision are still awaiting their Conclusive Grounds decision. This may affect the total number of Conclusive Grounds decisions for 2024.

The three most common nationalities of potential victims referred for the year were British at 23% (4,441), Albanian at 13% (2,492), and Vietnamese at 11% (2,153). Of all referrals in 2024, 68% (13,100) were adults at the age of referral. This is an increase compared to 65% adult referrals in 2023. The number of children referred into the NRM reduced from 35% in 2023 to 31% (5,999) in 2024 (Home Office end of year statistics 2024.)

In Bexley, 88 National Referral Mechanism (NRM) referrals were made and 2 Duty to Notifies (notification for adults not consenting to a referral), representing a total of 90 concerns locally. This now places Bexley as the 6th highest referring borough into the NRM in the UK, without our neighbouring borough Kent being the highest.

45 of these referrals concerned children, representing 50% of all referrals. In Bexley, there was an even split between adult and children's referrals. This reflects an increase in adult referrals from 2023 (25% of NRM referrals were adults in 2023). Locally, most of the victims were British Nationals, followed by Bangladeshi, Nigerian and Indian. While British victims remain the most common nationality of victims, the other victim nationalities differ from the national picture.

The majority of referrals into the NRM were concerning victims of Forced Criminality, Forced Labour and Sexual Exploitation.  Forced Criminality most commonly was connected to County Lines, and Forced Labour connected to exploitation of workers on a Visa. We have seen an increase in identification of multiple exploitation, particularly of criminal and sexual exploitation together of children.

Source: Bexley’s NRM and DtN Spreadsheet. 

The Signs

We can all help end modern slavery by being aware of what to look for. Signs that someone might be a victim of modern slavery include:

• a change in attitude from before, change in clothing or appearance, wearing multiple layers of clothing
• appearing scared, avoiding eye contact, and being untrusting
• appearing to be under the control and influence of others
• living in cramped, dirty, overcrowded accommodation
• may be isolated from the local community and their family
• may have inappropriate clothing for the work they are performing, and/or a lack of safety equipment
• showing signs of injury, abuse, and malnourishment
• they are found in or connected to a location believed to be used for crime or exploitation
• they have lots of new friends or associates and feel that they have to go where they want/do what they want
• they have no access or control of their passport or identity documents
• they have unexpected gifts or finances
• they look unkempt, are often in the same clothing and have poor hygiene
• they may allow others to speak for them when addressed directly, rather than speak for themselves
• they travel only with other workers
• they’re collected very early and/or returned late at night on a regular basis

The above list is not exhaustive and further information on the signs to look out for can be found on the Unseen website.

The role of The London Borough of Bexley

The Local Authority has statutory obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to respond to modern slavery and human trafficking and to safeguard residents from being exploited. In short, there are two obligations: 1) not to subject anyone to modern slavery or human trafficking; and 2) to act and safeguard residents when we suspect they have been a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking.

As a local authority, we have a duty to notify the Home Office of any individual encountered who we believe is a suspected victim of modern slavery or human trafficking. By referring a victim to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the Home Office can investigate the circumstances of someone’s exploitation further and provide the necessary support to potential victims and survivors of modern slavery.

In the London Borough of Bexley, we are committed to the opposition of modern slavery and human trafficking and are working with our partners to drive the identification, recognition, awareness, and disruption of this heinous crime. The London Borough of Bexley’s Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy 2023-2028 sets out our local partnership approach (including referral pathways) and is available to read on request to the Community Safety team via email community.safety@bexley.gov.uk.

The Bexley modern slavery partnership is made up of the following:

Supporting our Wider Objectives

Our 2023 to 2028 Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy supports our Corporate Plan (Bexley Plan 2022-26). In particular: 

Outcome 9: People and communities feel safe and inclusive.

Bexley prides itself on being one of London’s safest boroughs, and that includes from Modern Slavery. We work to ensure Bexley continues to be a borough of low-risk and that requires the partnership working contained in the Strategy to ensure we respond robustly where we have concerns and to ensure we are proactive and preventing exploitation. Further information can be found in our Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy 2023-2028.

Outcome 14: Rigorous procurement and contract management to get the best services.

Many services are provided by partners and contractors on our behalf. This means that we have an obligation to ensure they provide services in a lawful and legitimate way, as we would expect of ourselves, and that they treat their own employees and contractors according to the law. We will manage our contracts in a way which ensures we identify and address risks of modern slavery in our supply chains and that we provide resources and awareness for our contractors around modern slavery and their duties. We will provide an Annual Transparency in Supply Chains Statement (below) to demonstrate what the risks are in our supply chains and how we mitigate them.

For professionals seeking latest advice on how to help potential victims

For the latest advice on how to end modern slavery, including details about how to refer victims into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and the statutory guidance, please see the Government’s Modern Slavery website.

You can also find a directory of support services for victims of modern slavery on the Bexley Safeguarding Adults Board (BSAB) website.

For training, please visit Training for Professionals.

Our Work to Date

The Council has been committed to tackling modern slavery in line with our 2023-2028 Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy. 

This included:

1. to raise awareness of Modern Slavery and how to spot the signs
2. to ensure a whole system understanding of statutory responsibilities
3. to ensure frontline staff have the tools, resources, and guidance to meet their legal duties
4. understanding of local context and improvement of partnerships for cross-sector working and information sharing
5. confidence to act when you are not a First Responder but have a concern
6. working in line with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and new emerging laws, policies, and guidance

We have developed public communications, tools, and resources to raise awareness of modern slavery, human trafficking, and child exploitation. The London Borough of Bexley ran and attended several community outreach programmes to promote awareness of Modern Slavery, including an Anti-Slavery Conference Day with the Salvation Army. A total of 200 individuals attended these events throughout the year, enabling Bexley to promote awareness of Modern Slavery to a widespread audience.

We have expanded our Modern Slavery Working Group with partnership to include partners outside of the Local Authority, including statutory and voluntary partners, to ensure a holistic approach to tackling modern slavery in Bexley. Here, we share and develop information, tools, and resources. Through this partnership, we have put modern slavery on the agenda for many other agencies and organisations, and this is being more widely recognised.

The London Borough of Bexley has joined Human Trafficking Foundation’s Buddy System pilot. The pilot was created in response to similar challenges that local authorities often face when it comes to tackling modern slavery. The aim of the pilot is to strengthen inter-borough collaboration, to share best practices, develop strategies and identify common challenges to work on collectively. We created our third Transparency-in-Supply Chains Statement (below); while not a legal requirement, we seek to embed steps into our procurement practices to deter exploitation in our supply chains and address risks where they might arise. We have HR policies and practices, such as recruitment, whistleblowing, and grievance procedures, to ensure we have responsible recruitment practices, and that no Council employee is exploited. We have developed a Risk Matrix for our commissioned care contracts, to ensure we are aware of marketplace risks based on national concerns around exploitation in the care sector. We are developing a wider risk assessment of our Council supply chain and advising staff on how to identify and mitigate risk in contracts they manage.

We require all local authority staff to undertake modern slavery training and offer more intensive training for frontline professionals in Bexley, including those who are not First Responders, to ensure a cross-sector understanding of modern slavery and confidence in all our roles and duties in tackling it. 93% have completed and passed this training. We delivered our Continuous Practical Development (CPD) accredited Adult Modern Slavery and Child Exploitation Workshops local partners to improve our understanding and actions responding to modern slavery of children and young people. In 2024 there were 25 Modern Slavery training sessions ran, with an attendance of 486 people over the year. The trainings provided were on Adult Modern Slavery; Child Exploitation; and Sexual Exploitation. 100% of participants felt that the sessions adequately covered the objectives set in the session, enabling professionals to get a better understanding of what Modern Slavery is, the signs and how to support potential victims.

We keep updated of changing laws, policies and guidance and update our own policies and practices accordingly. We do this by participating in local, regional, and national networks and learning from best practice of other local authorities and partnerships. We report to the Bexley Community Safety Partnership quarterly on our modern slavery work to ensure oversight of delivery against the Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy.

We are entering our third year as a pilot site for the Child National Referral Mechanism Devolved Decision-Making Panel Pilot, in which we coordinate a local panel of local authority, police and health professionals to make decisions about whether children referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) are victims of modern slavery or not. The Bexley panel has been recognised for its efficient and effective work, which in turn has informed participating professional’s understanding of the realities of modern slavery.

In 2024, we developed a free multi-agency, confidential Modern Slavery drop-in service for anyone who has concerns around exploitation or trafficking. This service runs on the third Thursday of each month, with no appointment required, allowing potential victims, professionals and concerned residents to access support and information with translators available on request. The aim of the service is to provide accessible and anonymous reporting of modern slavery, trafficking, and related concerns. The service is held at the Salvation Army on Lion’s Road in Bexleyheath, with the following core agencies represented:

• Adult Social Care
• Community Safety Team
• Department of Work and Pensions
• Housing
• Immigration
• Metropolitan Police
• The Salvation Army

As a result of strong partnership working with the Salvation Army and Metropolitan Police, there was an effective and timely response to two multi-victim cases of Modern Slavery in 2024. Multi agency working across the two agencies with the London Borough of Bexley meant that multiple potential victims were identified, interviewed, and supported under the NRM process. Many of the potential victims were referred to the NRM and received their Positive Reasonable and Conclusive Ground Decisions.

Through these various efforts, the London Borough of Bexley has been able to promote awareness of the signs of Modern Slavery, as well as provide crucial training to not only frontline professionals, but residents too. As a result of this work, the number of referrals for Modern Slavery victims by the London Borough of Bexley increased from 51 in 2023 to 90 referrals in 2024 (Bexley’s NRM and DtN Spreadsheet.) Whilst an increase in referrals of Modern Slavery cases may be seen as a concern, this is a positive outcome; the increase in referrals means first that we are more effective at identifying victims, and second, that that professionals are better engaging with potential victims and referring them to the right support mechanisms. We need to identify victims in order to support them. 

Areas of Focus in 2025-2026

Looking forwards into 2025-2026 many of the objectives and actions are ongoing in nature and priority, but we must also adapt to new legislative changes and local developments. We will continue to deliver against the four overarching goals of Prevent, Protect, Prepare and Pursue, but will adapt our actions to reflect progress and new needs.

Our main actions this year are to:

1. increase the uptake of modern slavery training borough-wide and across all partners
2. to increase confidence in understanding of modern slavery duties and ensure all local authority staff know where to access tools and resources
3. to continue to raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking, engaging more with local groups and residents
4. to risk assess our supply chains and procurement processes and develop practices to mitigate risks identified
5. to carry out proactive partnership enforcement activities to disrupt exploitation in at-risk sectors

For our five-year Strategy and Toolkit and a longer-term perspective, please refer to our Modern Slavery and Exploitation Strategy 2023-2028.