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S Unit 9: Ideals and reality Reading–writing: How did we let modern slavery become part of our everyday lives? (B2) a) Read an article from a newspaper about aspects of slavery in modern-day Britain. 1 Since the Modern Slavery Act of 2015, British companies over a certain size have been required to report on slavery in their supply chains. The reports make clear that slavery has become normal once again – and not just in criminal operations such as the illegal drugs trade or trafficking for prostitution, but in the mainstream economy. Last month the National Crime Agency reported a 35% annual rise in the number of suspected slavery victims found in the UK, with more than 5,000 people referred to the government mechanism that supports them in 2017. Labour exploitation, rather than sexual exploitation, was the most common type of modern slavery cited. The list of high-risk sectors for slavery declared in company statements is long: temporary workers in distribution, office cleaning and logistics operations; car-washes cleaning company vehicles; construction workers building and renovating company premises; outsourced security staff. How did slavery, which we thought was abolished, reach into our everyday consumption? Things that were until recently luxuries – manicures, regular holiday breaks to hotels, eating out frequently, using manual labour to dig out a basement under your house – are now presented to us as affordable, everyday even. Where they have become so, it is in large part thanks to other people being badly paid at best, or victims of modern slavery at worst. The squeezed middle class has been bought off by the illusion that it can share the consuming habits of those with runaway incomes at the top; but it can’t – not without squeezing those further down the chain. In a world where the state has often absented itself from the enforcement of employment law, and where so many human interactions are reduced to financial exchanges at whatever rate the market will take, people have become commodities to use or sell. People-traffickers target the vulnerable – including those with learning disabilities or raised in care, homeless people, those with alcohol and drug problems or previous convictions. They are the people easiest to control and least likely to attract sympathy. Anti-immigration sentiment has encouraged people to see these victims as foreign, as “other”. How else to explain why neighbours, work colleagues and customers so often fail to notice modern slavery? Both the National Audit Office and the parliamentary select committee for work and pensions have highlighted serious shortcomings in the support for victims of modern slavery once they have been identified. The anti-slavery commissioner Kevin Hyland also pointed out to the committee that every time a suspected victim of slavery is referred to the national referral mechanism, a crime is being alleged. Yet there is only a one-in-four chance of these cases being recorded as a potential crime, let alone investigated. If there were 4,000 rapes in the UK and only one in four was recorded by the police, there would be an outcry, he said. These failings need state remedies. Meanwhile, we all need to recognise the signs. Where workers are putting in excessive hours, where they have no language to communicate with customers or where employers seem quick to speak for them, where they live in houses of multiple occupancy, we should be alert to the possibility of modern slavery. If you are being offered a service for much less than you would expect to pay for it, someone is almost certainly being exploited. A car wash that takes six men 15 minutes and costs £10 does not pay the legal minimum wage. If something seems too cheap to be true, it probably is. (Felicity Lawrence, The Guardian , 2 April 2018) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 b) Go through the article again and complete the sentences below using your own words. 1. Current reports on slavery show that . 2. Typically, slavery occurs in businesses . 3. Consumers support slavery by . 4. Modern slavery is often not noticed because . 5. The problem with investigating cases of slavery is that . 6. Everyone can help fighting modern slavery through . 140 Semester self-checks Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv