COVID-19 Risk and Response: Impacts and Mitigations for Modern Slavery Victims, Survivors and Vulnerable Populations

As the UN explained on May 5, COVID-19 "is likely to increase the scourge of modern-day slavery." Victims and survivors of modern slavery are at greater risk of ongoing exploitation and re-exploitation. Traffickers will increase recruitment and seek to maintain revenue during economic crisis. Victim identification has become even more challenging as States shift protection resources towards combatting the pandemic. Access to shelters is increasingly limited, and provisions in the 2015 Modern Slavery Act on victim support may be compromised. Economic contraction and resource reallocation will undermine the anti-slavery work of third-sector organisations, law enforcement and local government. NHS staff are stretched to capacity and may not recognise victims. We respond to many warnings by the policy community that, as the UN noted, "inaction could lead to a sharp rise in the number of people being pushed into slavery" because of COVID-19. Elsewhere the UN has called upon governments to "urgently adopt inclusive measures aimed at protecting...trafficked persons in their national response to COVID-19," calling such measures "urgent and necessary." The OSCE has declared that the crisis brings an acute "obligation to combat the exploitation of vulnerable people" and that combating slavery during COVID-19 is "an urgent priority." A consortium of NGOs has warned that COVID-19 will have similar consequences to natural disasters, causing spikes in slavery. Yet while there is an increasing number of risks being articulated across the anti-slavery sector, they are not being gathered and assessed in a robust, coherent way. There is no attempt underway to complete a full COVID-19 risk/response assessment for slavery victims/survivors in the UK, although UK-based organisations are sharing their immediate challenges. As we do not fully understand the risks, governments and third-sector organisations cannot effectively respond to calls-including those from the UN-for the urgent adoption of protection and mitigation measures. The complexity of the risk environment may impede anti-slavery mitigation unless risks can be assessed. We need to analyse risk and recommend mitigation, in order to ensure that COVID-19 does not increase enslavement and jeopardise slavery survivors' recovery. We therefore answer the question: what are the accrued risks and mitigating responses of COVID-19 for victims and survivors of slavery? To answer this key question, we answer the sub-questions: What are the causal pathways throughout which mitigations are expected to work? Do these efforts reflect survivors' experiences? We systematically analyse risks and responses across a year, in order to provide large-scale evidence and best-practice recommendations. We do not duplicate the valuable risk mitigation work of front-line organisations, but support it with state-of-the-art risk assessment, using survivor insights and real-time data, for the sector's direct use. Derived from disaster response techniques and public health frameworks, our participatory risk assessment includes interview, survey and web-monitoring data. Our multi-method design includes qualitative and quantitative surveys, public information monitoring, a modified e-Delphi, evidence reviews, and risk analysis. We adopt a multi-level approach to consider risk and assess against a framework adapted from our social determinants model. As we assess risk, we analyse responses and recommend mitigations. To provide lessons, this includes comparative analyses of responses by other countries and during other disasters.