I am definitely more about stories than statistics. That's just my nature. It's good when people ask me about the scale of modern slavery as it forces me to look again at the statistics.
Even though I know the statistics are huge I am always shocked at the continued growth of the crime and how slow the people in power are to act.
Here's 3 facts that caught my eye recently:
1. An estimated 50 million people were living in modern slavery on any given day in 2021, an increase of 10 million people since 2016.
2. Up to half of people convicted of modern slavery offences under groundbreaking legislation enacted in 2015 have walked free from NI courts with non-custodial sentences.
3. The Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act – part of a UK-wide legislative crack-down on the crime five years ago – stipulates that anyone convicted of modern slavery should be given a minimum two-year custodial sentence, in practice the average sentence handed down was almost half that – 14.6 months.
