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For far too long, the Home Office has been detaining survivors of trafficking and modern slavery in ‘immigration removal centres’ after they have been wrongly convicted for offences their traffickers forced them to commit or after they have been found not to have permission to stay in the UK. Although most are later released (their detention having served no purpose), people can be held indefinitely. The harm this causes is profound and often irreparable. While the purpose of detention is primarily to carry out removal from the UK, last year only 113 confirmed victims of trafficking were removed through enforced returns (as confirmed by a Freedom of Information request). 

There’s encouraging data to suggest that there’s been a decrease in the numbers of victims of trafficking who were detained in 2023 as compared to 2022. Data acquired through a freedom of information request confirmed that in 2023, 2,384 people, who were held in immigration detention, were referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) - the UK’s system to identify someone as a victim of trafficking and initiate support. While this is a welcome decrease from the previous year, the Home Secretary’s announcement that immigration raids would increase over the summer under a new “returns and enforcement programme” is greatly concerning. The government intends to increase detention capacity and re-open two previously closed down detention centres, as part of the Home Secretary’s plan to ‘facilitate higher levels of enforcement and returns’.  

Many survivors of trafficking are detained for removal after being picked up during raids on brothels, nail bars and cannabis farms. This is made worse by policy changes brought in by the Conservative government that eroded protections for survivors of trafficking, making it much harder for them to be identified as victims of trafficking, receive the adequate support they need and be released from detention.  

Re-traumatisation instead of recovery  

Research has clearly shown that detention has a significant negative impact on survivors’ mental health and recovery, which in turn increases their risk of re-trafficking or further exploitation. Survivors of trafficking are frequently diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and suffer from self-harm and suicidal ideation. The appropriate treatment for these conditions, such as individual trauma-focused therapy, is rarely available in immigration detention. Even if it were accessible, it would not be effective in the harsh and unstable conditions of detention. 

Even when found to be a potential victim of trafficking by the NRM, hundreds remain stuck in detention awaiting a final ‘conclusive’ decision.  In 2023, 524 survivors received a positive initial ‘reasonable grounds’ decision, meaning that they were recognised as a potential victims of trafficking, but over a third (168) were kept in detention even after the decision was made. This is a period when they should be recovering from their experiences, something that is impossible in a detention setting.  

What’s worrying is that 1250 people received a negative ‘reasonable grounds’ decision, over nine times the number the year before. This can be attributed to the changes made by the Conservative government, asking survivors to provide a higher threshold of ‘objective evidence’ for their trafficking experiences to receive a first stage decision. There are obvious barriers to why survivors of trafficking are unable to do this. 

Further abuse by the immigration system 

A year and half ago, we exposed the ways in which the immigration detention causes significant harm to survivors of trafficking in our flagship report Abuse by the System. The report’s findings were echoed by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s (ICIBI),1 . It made clear that, rather than ‘gaming the system’ as the Conservative government claimed, people who had already been exploited and mistreated were experiencing further abuse by the immigration system. 

While the 2023 data indicates that the situation may have improved slightly, there are ongoing concerns about Home Office’s policy and practice, especially around the quality of decision making, including:  

• The initial screening interview conducted by UK authorities shortly after an asylum seeker’s arrival is insufficient to identify survivors of trafficking. The ‘Detention Gatekeeper’ does not sufficiently screen for vulnerability of trafficking victims when making decisions to detain. 

• Medical practitioners in immigration removal centres (IRCs) under the ‘Rule 35 process’ are allowed to identify detainees who may be vulnerable on account of health risks, suicidal intentions, or having been a victim of torture. This process is subject to long delays; has too high an evidential burden; sees reports routinely rejected for minor errors; and internal review panel recommendations are often overturned by senior Home Office officials. 

• To be considered for release, the ‘Adults at Risk’ policy requires detainees to produce ‘scientific levels of evidence’ that they are likely to suffer harm in detention. For victims of trafficking, this is difficult to obtain, especially without access to good quality legal representation. Automatic release from detention is only granted to recognised victims of trafficking who received a positive conclusive grounds decision and a grant of discretionary leave to remain. But discretionary leave is rarely granted, and requires extensive evidence submission. 

• Despite the longstanding concerns about the effectiveness of the ‘Adults at Risk’ policy, in April 2024 changes were made to the policy which further watered down the protections for vulnerable people in detention.  These included reducing the level of risk attributed to medico-legal reports for victims of torture and provision for the Home Office to seek a second opinion on individuals who already have professional external evidence. The government is currently undertaking a review of the Adults at Risk policy and the detention centre rules, however limited information has been made available about what this review will consist of and when it will be completed. 

Most recently, The Brook House Inquiry exposed a wholesale failure of safeguards and a culture of dehumanisation in the system that led to 19 instances of inhuman or degrading treatment of people who were detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. The inquiry found inadequate healthcare provision, clinical safeguarding failures, and other mistreatments in immigration detention.  

Despite all the clearly documented systematic failures, the previous government remained committed to the expansion of immigration detention estate, seemingly without any willingness to acknowledge or make improvements to the flaws. At the same time, section 12 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, brought into force just a week after the Brook House report came out, provides the Home Secretary with greater powers around detention and allows them to extend a period of detention. It’s a great shame that the current government is following a similar path.  

Time for change 

Depriving a person of their liberty is a serious interference with their human rights and should only be used where ‘necessary’ and ‘proportionate’. Yet the Home Office routinely detains people subject to immigration control, without judicial oversight, causing them significant harm and impeding their recovery from trauma. Now is the time for the Labour government, which has already set out its commitment to upholding human rights and to closing forms of quasi-detention, to review of the process for detaining victims of trafficking, and implement the practical recommendations outlined in our report. Recent plans to expand the use of detention should be abandoned and alternatives, such as the two pilot projects recently evaluated by UNHCR (that are at least two-thirds less expensive than detention) should be explored instead. Most urgently, the government must implement the recommendations made by the independent Brook House Inquiry, including a strict 28-day limit on the length of detention.