There is much you can do to support the campaign.

Petition

We have produced a petition for you to use on street stalls or at meetings to promote the campaign.

We have written a template letter for you to send to your local paper to raise the profile of the campaign and emphasise that even if modern slavery is not an acknowledged issue in your area, your council can have an effect through its procurement policy.

Modern Day Slavery Petition

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Tweet your support

You can tweet your support for the issue, with a link to our campaign page and copying in your council leader.

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Share on Facebook

You can write about the campaign on Facebook, again linking to our campaign page.
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Discuss in your branch

You can discuss the issue in your Co-operative Party branch (if you haven’t already done so); if you are also a Labour Party member you can contact your branch secretary and ask for the motion to be discussed at a future meeting.

Feed back to canvassers

If you are canvassed, raise the issue with whoever is canvassing – issues like this are fed back to the people running election campaigns and can influence local policy.

Contact your councillor

And, where you have them, you can contact your local Labour & Co-operative councillors and ask them if they are able to promote the Charter within Labour Group and the Council.

You will find template letters and emails below:

Different but broadly similar legislation applies across the UK.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 covers England and Wales; Wales has subsequently strengthened and extended the legislation through a Code of Practice.

The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 applies in Scotland, and The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 applies in Northern Ireland.

Despite the somewhat patchwork nature of the legislation, the National Crime Agency collates statistics across the UK giving a picture of the number of potential victims of modern slavery and human trafficking referred through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

The statistics are horrifying, and yet probably only represent a partial picture of the extent of these abhorrent crimes. As the National Audit Office’s report on reducing modern slavery said: “Referrals to the NRM have increased but the Home Office does not know if this is due to increased awareness or increased prevalence of modern slavery.” Given that the Government itself estimates that there are between 10,000 and 13,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, the reported figures are likely to understate the true extent of these grim crimes.

What the statistics do allow you to do is see how active your local authority and police authority have been in making referrals to the National Crime Agency. This information may be useful when you are contacting your councillors or writing to the local paper.

A link to the NRM statistics and to the National Audit Office’s report is in the information and resources section on the right.