Rights and justice for all survivors: ATLEU’s response to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
Survivors of trafficking and modern slavery have the right to safety, support and protection to recover from the crimes committed against them. UK law must enable all survivors of trafficking and modern slavery to access rights and justice, irrespective of their immigration status. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which enters report stage in the House of Commons this week, would do the opposite.
While the Bill repeals the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and most of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which is welcome, it retains parts of the Illegal Migration Act which would exclude many survivors from protection and support. Including:
Section 29 which expands the group of people subject to a Public Order Disqualification to include any non-British person convicted in the UK of an offence of any length of sentence. It also makes the application of disqualifications mandatory; a ‘duty’ to apply rather than the current ‘power’.
Many survivors have convictions as a result of crimes committed under coercion. Public Order Disqualifications disproportionately affect survivors of forced criminal exploitation. Survivors of trafficking and modern slavery who are disqualified are barred from protections under the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). These include access to support, a recovery and reflection period, protection from removal, and to formal identification.
Section 59 which makes certain asylum and human rights claims inadmissible for nationals of countries considered “safe”. The current list includes countries such as Albania, India and Bangladesh, which are countries of origin for many survivors of trafficking and modern slavery.
Parts of the Bill also expand the scope of immigration offences and the government's ability to detain migrants. These increase the risk that victims of modern slavery will be punished as criminals instead of being safely identified and supported to recover. See the anti-trafficking sector joint briefing on the Bill here
The Bill must be amended.
As a member of the Coalition for Asylum Rights and Justice (CARJ), a coalition of nine organisations in the legal and human rights sector working for a fair and humane immigration system, we are calling for the Bill to be amended to:
Repeal the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in full
Protect refugees from being wrongly punished by the criminal offences in Clauses 13 to 18
Remove the retrospective effect of detention powers, which allows the Home Office to detain people before a decision on their deportation is made, by deleting Clause 41(17)
Repeal harmful provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, such as Part 5 on Modern Slavery which has created barriers to identification, led to thousands being disqualified from modern slavery protections, and made it far more difficult for survivors to secure stable and long-term leave.
Our written evidence was submitted to the Public Committee for the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill with the Anti Trafficking Monitoring Group.