At the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday 19 September, the Prime Minister announced new domestic measures and an investment of £20 million in the new Global Fund to End Modern Slavery.
In total the UK will double its development spending on modern slavery to £150million, enabling more work in collaboration with source and transit countries.
Prime Minister Theresa May hosted an event on tackling modern slavery at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The PM said, “to address this insidious crime, I know that more needs to be done, so today, I’m pleased to announce a series of further measures that will be implemented in my country. We will train new specialist investigators and frontline police officers, and we will develop the expertise of prosecutors so that they can better handle complex cases and support traumatised victims.
But for a crime that has no respect for borders, we need a truly international response. We will therefore host an international summit of chief prosecutors next spring, and in addition, the UK will double its aid spending on modern slavery to £150 million, enabling more work in collaboration with source and transit countries.
The commitments we make here today through the call to action lay strong foundations for more effective action. The task is an urgent one, so we need swiftly to put our words into practice and hold ourselves to account for progress”.
Speaking at an event hosted by Alliance 8.7 at the General Assembly, immediately after the Prime Minister’s announcement, International Development Secretary, Priti Patel, joined in the call for further action to tackle modern slavery.
Priti Patel also welcomed the “wake-up call” provided by new global estimates, which show that if all enslaved people were brought together in a single country, it would be the 34th most populous country in the world, ahead of Poland and Canada.
International Development Secretary, Priti Patel, said: The UK’s call to action is on behalf of some of the most victimised, brutalised, exploited people in the world.
I recently met young female victims of trafficking at a safe house in Lagos, and heart-breaking testimonies like theirs vividly demonstrate that modern slavery is a scourge that needs to be eradicated.
In Nigeria, as well as many places around the world, we are stepping up our efforts and rising to this challenge, we will not accept a world where human beings are bought and sold.
Every year millions of women in Asia are trafficked into modern slavery. Many vulnerable women leave home with dreams of earning money in the Middle East as domestic workers or garment workers.
Most are successful, returning home with money to improve their family’s lives, but some face abuse and may endure a harrowing reality.
UK aid is helping to prevent the trafficking of women and girls in South Asia. The UK aid funded Work in Freedom programme works in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, empowering women to make the right decision, helping them to avoid exploitation if they go abroad and assisting them to find work locally if they decide not to go. The programme also works in selected destination countries in the Middle East.
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