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A new briefing from the Helen Bamber Foundation examines how trauma, fear and gaps in the asylum and trafficking systems can affect survivors’ ability to disclose their experiences and why proposed changes to credibility rules risk penalising survivors for the way trauma affects them.

Survivors of human trafficking and other forms of extreme cruelty may need to navigate both the UK’s asylum system and the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which identifies and supports potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery.

Both these systems rely heavily on people being able to disclose what has happened to them. But disclosure of traumatic experiences is rarely straightforward. It may take time, sometimes years. Survivors may initially be unable to talk about what happened, may leave out important details, or may give inconsistent accounts. This does not necessarily mean that their experiences are untrue.

The government has said that stronger measures around timely disclosure are intended to address “misuse” of the modern slavery system. It is seeking to place greater emphasis on when and how survivors disclose their experiences. This includes provisions in the Immigration and Asylum Bill 2026 that could treat delay, material inaccuracies, inconsistencies, omissions and striking similarities between accounts as factors damaging to a person's credibility.

The Helen Bamber Foundation is concerned that these changes do not adequately reflect what is known about trauma and memory, or the practical barriers survivors face when trying to disclose highly distressing experiences.

Our new briefing, “You cannot switch off trauma on demand”: Mental health, memory and disclosure for trafficking survivors, brings together our clinical experience, the experiences of survivors we support and existing research to explain why these changes matter.

The profound impact of trauma

Traumatic memories do not always exist as a clear, chronological narrative. Survivors experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or complex PTSD may experience memories as fragmented images, sounds or physical sensations. They may struggle to recall events in sequence or have gaps in their memory.

Fear, shame and the desire to avoid painful memories can also affect what someone is able or willing to disclose.

As one survivor supported by HBF explains:

“You cannot switch off that trauma on demand. It takes time to build enough trust to speak about experiences like trafficking and exploitation, and many people only feel able to disclose what happened little by little.”

This account is consistent with clinical experience and a substantial body of research.

Disclosure depends on safety and trust

For survivors of trafficking, disclosure can also be complicated by the nature of the control and exploitation they have experienced.

People may have been threatened by their traffickers, subjected to violence or sexual exploitation, or made to believe that they cannot trust authorities. They may continue to feel unsafe long after they have physically escaped their exploitation. Building a relationship in which someone feels sufficiently safe to disclose can take considerable time.

At HBF, we regularly see people disclose traumatic experiences for the first time only after they have been receiving support for a significant period. In one case described in the briefing, a survivor disclosed an experience of labour exploitation that had happened more than a decade earlier only after years of receiving therapeutic and other support. His experience shows how later disclosure does not necessarily mean that an account is unreliable.

The systems themselves can create barriers

Beyond psychological barriers, the asylum and trafficking systems can also make disclosure more difficult.  Survivors may be asked about their experiences at a very early stage of their interaction with the UK authorities, sometimes even before they have legal representation, support or any established relationship of trust with the person asking the questions.

There are also significant problems with the way trafficking and asylum claims are identified and investigated. For example, research has identified shortcomings in asylum screening, while a recent UNHCR audit of asylum interviews found significant problems with how information is elicited from people seeking asylum. In many cases, decision-makers did not obtain sufficient evidence, and interviewing approaches were not always appropriate for vulnerable people.

There are also serious shortages in immigration legal aid. Many people seeking asylum struggle to find a lawyer, and some do not obtain legal representation until after their initial screening interview.

It is therefore unrealistic to assume that everyone will have a genuine and meaningful opportunity to provide a full account of their experiences at the earliest stage of the process.

What needs to change

The UK’s systems for identifying and protecting trafficking survivors should be grounded in clinical evidence and recognise the realities of trauma rather than penalising survivors for them.

This means:

• Disclosure should be understood as a process, not something that can necessarily happen fully at the first opportunity.
• Decision-makers should understand how trauma, PTSD and complex PTSD can affect memory, communication and the ability to provide a chronological account.
• Survivors should be given safe and meaningful opportunities to disclose, with sufficient time and appropriate support.
• Home Office staff, First Responders, legal representatives and other professionals should have the skills and training needed to identify trafficking and respond appropriately to trauma.
• Problems with asylum screening, interviews and trafficking identification should be addressed rather than placing greater responsibility on survivors to overcome systemic failures.
• Survivors should have access to high-quality, trauma-informed legal advice and representation.
• Any assessment of credibility should consider the whole body of available evidence and the individual circumstances of the survivor, rather than treating delay, inconsistency or omission as inherently suspicious.

Click on the arrow below to read the full briefing