Media coverage of forced labour: exposing Britain's hidden crime

For most people in the UK, their only experience of many global challenges will be through the headlines. The British media's reporting of forced labour is vitally important to end slavery and boost political will to take tougher measures against what is a growing criminal industry in the UK today.

Over the past few years, media coverage of forced labour and slavery has increased, yet there has been no systematic study of what kinds of cases are being reported or how journalists are approaching this complex subject.

Last month the Joseph Rowntree Foundation launched a new piece of work that aimed to plug this gap. A new report – Forced Labour and Human Trafficking: Media Coverage in 2012 – used the LexisNexis database to analyse 2,770 articles reporting forced labour captured in 2012.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the Foundation's topline findings found that the media focused disproportionately on crimes involving women, sex trafficking and UK nationals.

Government data from 2012 shows that 942 victims of trafficking were identified by state authorities. The LexisNexis data revealed that last year the media reported 263 incidents of forced labour and trafficking and that out of this, 172 stories involved trafficking. There were just five cases reported of domestic servitude.

In cases of human trafficking – including sex trafficking – and forced labour, there were 182 women victims identified by the media and 72 men. This may be because according to the National Referral Mechanism, the government's framework for identifying victims of trafficking, more women victims are identified by the statutory services than men. However, the JRF report points out that, according to UK crime data, the media's emphasis is still heavily weighted towards female victims. And in the case of men being trafficked for labour exploitation – one of the fastest growing forms of modern slavery in the UK – there is even more stark under-reporting by media outlets.

According to NRM data, most trafficking victims come from overseas – yet the majority of the articles in the LexisNexis database focus on victims from the UK.

The issue of under-reporting also came through in the data analysis, especially in the case of forced labour. The International Labour Organisation suggests that for every reported case, about 27 cases go unreported. Using this calculation, the JRF report estimates there were at least 7,101 victims of forced labour (including all forms of human trafficking) in the UK 2012 – yet only 263 were reported.

Why is there such a gap? There are two key factors. First, stories aren't getting to media outlets. It's notable that there was more reporting of victims of forced labour in the agricultural sector, which has a dedicated exploitation watchdog, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

Shrinking resources in the media mean newspapers have less time and money to devote to their own investigations. If no organisation like the GLA exists to pass on information about cases of exploitation, newspapers won't be aware of their existence.

Jakub Sobik of Anti-Slavery International points out that in cases of domestic servitude, victims are much less likely to come forward as government changes to visa rules means domestic workers cannot now change to a different employer, so they would be forced either to leave the country or stay here illegally.

Then there's the issue of newsworthiness. Ultimately, newspapers are commercial organisations and if editors don't think a story will sell, they won't run it. Many of the sex trafficking articles indexed were about the Rochdale trafficking ring, in which 47 young girls were forced into sexual slavery. The details of the case were so troubling and the number of victims so large that it generated a huge amount of interest.

"Obviously, it's important to understand that media reporting is based on what is 'newsworthy'," says Nick Grono, the CEO of Walk Free.

"The tragedy of modern slavery is certainly newsworthy and worth reporting on, but unfortunately, because it is such a hidden crime, it often takes an immense amount of resources to support investigative journalists. The other issue is that access to survivors is sometimes difficult, and it is their voices that play a huge part in pushing a story into the mainstream."

The JRF report also raises the issue of the media's linking of forced labour to a broader anti-immigration agenda.

"Fuelling anger towards immigration seems to sell more than reporting that the UK might not be so innocent in terms of trafficking happening on our doorstep," says Bex Griffiths, director of Baca, which works with forced migrants in Leicestershire.

"People who are working within immigration do not want to use the media to raise awareness as it is too risky that victims could be painted as perpetrators, doing damage to the overall public perception of victims," she adds.

Yet Tim Waldron, chief executive of anti-trafficking NGO Love146, insists that anti-slavery groups shouldn't be scared off engaging with the media. "[slavery] will remain hidden if the media don't report it; if it remains hidden, it will continue," says Waldron. "If it continues, then we will be complicit in allowing gross human rights abuses to be perpetrated in our midst."

But, he adds, increased media access comes with some caveats: "One aspect of the report I struggled with was the call for NGOs to make more victims available for interview. The report acknowledges that these are 'incredibly vulnerable people and steps would need to be taken to protect them'; however, the media's constant request for 'the voice of the victim' is fraught with difficulty."

Griffiths agrees: "I would not look for young people to tell their story unless they make the choice to do so themselves, knowing the consequences of their actions. We feel strongly that telling a story that is not ours to tell, however keen we are to tell about the realities of trafficking, is an exploitative act in itself."

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