In a globalised world, there is no cure for slavery

After a century of lecturing the outside world on the evils of slavery, Britain apparently needs to pass a law suppressing it within its own borders. There are an estimated 10,000 people living in slavery in Britain, a rise of "25% in a year", according to the home secretary, Theresa May – figures that look so vague they are hard to believe.The traffic in human beings has long been the dark side of modern globalisation, human conflict and cultural migration. People move around the world with ever greater ease, not through capture and bondage but, at least initially, in search of security, prosperity and adventure. Today's human trafficker was yesterday's travel agent; today's slave was yesterday's economic migrant. All we know is that the trade in humanity is now profitable, on a par with arms and drugs.The new report by Frank Field MP, and the response from the Home Office, attempt to shed light on this murky business. But while the horror of extreme slavery is easy to define, it is harder to pin down the dividing line between voluntary migration and servitude. The slaves of Field's inquiry include domestic staff, contractors, sex workers, devotees of religious cults and wives – almost anyone for whom economic and personal circumstance has made them beholden to someone else.There is no cure to this, only mitigation. The flows of population across the globe grow with every civil war, famine and armed conflict. The government proposes to increase the penalty for human trafficking from 14 years to life, and to appoint a government "slavery tsar". Prison and bureaucracy are the classic state responses to any evil.The chaotic state of Britain's border control is itself an invitation to traffickers to exploit newcomers. Local social services, rather than the police, are the first line of rescue, yet they are under acute pressure in areas of high immigration. Support for relief agencies and whistleblowers would be more helpful than new laws. The only certainty is that this is an evil that will not going away.(theguardian.com)ANN.Az