UK Records 23,000 Modern Slavery Referrals in 2025, Up 22% from Prior Year

It also noted a 54 percent rise in sexual exploitation of girls in Britain over the last five years.

Eleanor Lyons, appointed as Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner in October 2023, said the findings showed exploitation increasingly affecting people within the UK. She stated: 'The most harrowing forms of exploitation are becoming more widespread in this country and evolving faster than we can respond.

Lyons added that behind these numbers are real people abused in severe ways, such as women forced into the sex trade, children coerced into drug gangs, or workers trapped in brutal conditions.

Lyons explained that it is predominantly British boys and girls who are being exploited by criminals. She said children can be exploited through chat functions in video games, where perpetrators gain trust by buying tokens and targeting vulnerable individuals, leading to grooming and blackmail.

Boys are typically exploited criminally by county lines and drug gangs, whereas girls more commonly face sexual exploitation, which has risen by over 50 percent in the last five years and is occurring at younger ages.

The report identified rising living costs, debt, and insecure work as factors driving people into modern slavery and human trafficking. It warned that artificial intelligence and digital platforms, including social media and encrypted services, are enabling traffickers to recruit, groom, and control victims at scale.

Hidden-economy labor exploitation, such as in UK nail bars linked to organized criminal gangs in Vietnam, was highlighted as a key risk.

Lyons said the UK's response is not keeping pace with the scale and complexity of the threat. She called for mitigations across government bodies, including funding and training for specialist police units and fines for businesses breaching anti-exploitation rules.

The report presented scenarios where exploitation could adapt into harder-to-detect spaces, emphasizing that investing in law enforcement alone is insufficient and that wider cultural change is needed.

The Modern Slavery Act was introduced in 2015. It brought together existing anti-exploitation offenses into one law. The act also introduced a new defense for victims of slavery and trafficking who have been forced to break the law.

A Home Office spokesperson said the government is committed to reviewing the modern slavery system to reduce misuse while ensuring protections for those in need. The spokesperson added that the department is working with survivors to inform policy and has taken action to reduce case backlogs, providing swift decisions and support for victims to rebuild their lives.