Modern day slavery in the UK

so it seems that a local businessperson who sells tractors and cars has a group of Polish men and one woman living in a shed on his property and he pays them 70 pounds a week for full time work!

I knew another Polish guy that was there, for example if he earnt 100 then the crappy accomodation (an old touring caravan) cost 130, something like that, so that you were always in debt to the boss.

This makes me so cross!! Recently modern day slavery in the UK has been brought to the attention of the public and I always say I wish I could do somehting about it/

I wonder what I could do here? The thing is, what if people dont want to be 'rescued', when that woulld mean more homelessness

Slavery has never ended, it only changed its shape. Welcome to the Roma community, this is very persistent in their lives

You said your a teacher of some sort, educate them so that they can get a decent job and to be aware of these exploitation scams. Maybe you can't help everyone, but you can probably prevent more from falling into this trap


This makes them feel that they must work for them, millions of kids are estimated to be in this trap

Maybe you are right I should go up there...I dont know they will probably tell me to get lost.
the fact that there was only response to my post shows how few people give one!!

I don't know how they will react but if you go and explain their rights to them at least they have the chance to move to a better situation.

voa.gov.uk site gives information on fair rents for all kinds housing including people who are agricultural workers. There may be some kind of publication in Polish that could help.

Sheds with beds

telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10143697/Blighted-by-an-epidemic-of-beds-in-sheds.html

That's sick indeed. Those people must feel pretty hopeless and helpless.


I think you could try to talk to them, inform them about their rights, I don't know, maybe give them a phone number to some normal job agency that wouldn't cheat them?

If they don't know English (or even if they do know some) it would probably be a good idea to give them those phone numbers:

Barka is a Polish NGO that has a branch in the UK helping Central and Eastern European migrants:
barkauk.org/barka-uk-free-helpline

A helpline of British police for Poles (one can speak in Polish, apparently):
mojawyspa.co.uk/artykuly/17033/Infolinia-dla-Polakow-020-7321-8289

Maybe there's also some local helpline like this one:
theguardian.com/society/2006/mar/01/guardiansocietysupplement

Other useful phone numbers and addresses:
gbritain.net/articles.php?id=11

Is there any Polish community where you live? Some Polish church or sth?

There's a hotline (I think run by the department of employment) to report employers paying below the minimum wage - and this is well below the minimum wage. They're quite good at making sure people get the money that wasn't paid to them.

I would be very careful what you do, chances are these people are hawkers and if you get caught you will pay a big price.

It's not just Poles being kept as slaves in Britain, don't forget the Africans and Asians too.

As for the comment above about Hawkers and paying a big price etc, these gangs aren't as powerful as the Police and never will be. Never be afraid to tell the authorities if you have any information. Witness protection will be offered if you have concerns about repercussions.

Go to the local police station and ask to talk to someone about migrants that you are worried are being exploited, and you think they might be victims of modern slavery. Make sure you use the terms 'modern slavery' and 'exploitation'. You will be interviewed, but say that you want to remain anonymous (you don't want your name involved - they might ask you to sign a written statement), and you just want the Police to go and check out the situation, because you are genuinely worried about what you have seen/heard and think vulnerable people are at risk. Tell them everything that you know. The Police are quite aware of these problems and they do try and deal with it - there have been some high-profile cases - and they know how to deal with it.

There are the people who can help. It's actually about tax however they work with all relevant agencies and are very experienced with agricultural workers who are being exploited. It is an anonymous service: gov.uk/pay-and-work-rights-helpline

Kerp out of it ! Its dangerous for you and the family which is large because gypsies are one for all and all for one when it comes to village people, will seek you out.

I suggest you pass on your information to the posters who seem positive about police and local authorities, let them inform them, you could pass on your information by private message.

Sometimes there's a choice of doing the right thing or standing by and passively ignoring suffering.


It's an anonymous service so makes no difference who calls or emails. I'd be happy to.

Indeed, shall the world stand by and just let the profit motive perpetuate this universal trend?

This is a byproduct of the capitalist free market system....This is nothing in the grand scheme of things, only a rather trivial symptom. The entire planet is enslaved in one form or another.

This is a byproduct of plain nasty people. I'm not saying these individual cases are part of a wider scam that perpetuates from Poland, but there is a likelihood. Perhaps its escaped other posters attention that 'entrepreneurs' based in Poland have been rounding up the less fortunate, herding them over to the UK to scam the benefit system, and when the numbers up, leaving these unfortunates in the same position as previously posted. It follows a similar vain to what I am led to believe, is quite a popular tactic for defrauding the banks in Poland. A loser is picked up from the streets, the identity of some unwitting soul who has passed away is transferred to our loser, then sometime later, a large sum of money is borrowed and our loser gets the fallout if he's really unlucky. I'm sure it happens here to.

That is horrible, greedy people are disgusting.

I really wish you wouldn't repeatedly refer to someone from the street as a loser. What is a loser anyway?


and who might plain nasty people be exactly? and what are their motives?

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2742086/They-said-theyd-murder-I-left-Beaten-starved-40-year-old-man-kept-slave-concentration-camp-conditions-FINALLY-sees-captors-brought-justice.html

the 'losers' here had mental health problems or were alcoholics

well readers I DID IT and phoned crimestoppers.
also another person from this this thread is going to phone the local police.
Therefore we have a double pronged attack.
It does bother me that my actions might push people into crisis but.....

Well I hope they act on the first instance because if the authorities don't , as in make arrests and free the captive workforce, the people who do work there will receive punishment for talking and causing trouble !!.

Maybe its a bit insensitive to those who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. I was talking about those that make their way there through alcohol, drugs etc. I stand corrected.


Maybe those that deserve the resources will be cared for. That would be a positive outcome.

these people are also not losers, nobody ends up on the street through choice. Its the common misconceptions i have a problem with, what people are brainwashed into thinking, as you have displayed here.


Thank you

I agree they shouldn't be referred to as losers.

The further one strays into the English countryside the more and more obvious the extent of modern slavery becomes apparent, although over here it's Poles, Blacks and Asians working within agriculture. I can spot a Pole a mile off due to their square heads, round faces, hairline and other pysical characteristics, I've never been wrong.

I wouldn't think twice about alerting the authorities if I become aware of slavery taking place and I urge others to do the same, it's a subject close to my heart.

yeh it does happen in Wales and Scotland as well EG...:(

What happened after your call to 'crime-stoppers'?

My son went there and asked for a job and he said that all the Poles had gone - there was just one guy from Turkey and one from Ghana - and they were talking about moving to jobs elsewhere.... so.

Son left all keen for work car washing but there was no job when he got there. ...

No matter how learned you were, sometimes you won't do anything to prevent himself falling into the trap waiting for you. Just don't go to countries practicing slavery and having a long history of spreading it around the world.

Looks like it was a success then - I wonder what happened to them, where they went and what they're doing now.


Makes sense to go to the UK then - the first major country to stop it by the people's long campaigning and also enforce that on others.

The story of William Wilberforce seems a very pleasing one - the one the slave owner would ever tell if he wanted to be seen as good... at least in his own eyes.

He was certainly a well-known and very influential part of the struggle, though the campaign predates his involvement and to some extent focusing on Wilberforce alone ignores all the ordinary men and women who campaigned and won as well as ignoring his broader social campaigning.

Though this doesn't do much to help those who've moved to the UK to pick fruit or whatever.

What do you think then of Noam Chomsky's campaing:

Let me begin by saying something about liberalism, which is a very complicated concept, I think. It's correct surely that liberalism grew up in the intelectual environment of the rejection of the authority and so on. However liberalism has undergone a very complex evolution as a social philosophy over the years. If we go back to the classics, or at least, say, for example, Humboldt's limits of state action, which inspired Mill... The world Humboldt was considering - partially an imaginary world - was a post-feudal but pre-capitalist world.

This is a part of his answer to the last question asked by Bryan Magee (1978 BBC programme):

youtu.be/3LqUA7W9wfg