William Prescott, Sarah Kuszynski and Cyril Davydenko

December 2025

‘Modern slavery’ is a hidden but pervasive crime that disproportionately affects vulnerable people, especially asylum seekers, who become trapped in cycles of coercion and abuse. While exact numbers are unknown, it has been estimated that there could be over 120,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK alone.

Worse, few perpetrators ever face justice, businesses have limited incentives to eradicate modern slavery from their supply chains, many victims remain unidentified and, where victims are identified, the level of support offered to them is inadequate.

This report’s unique contribution is to analyse in greater detail the relationship between the asylum and modern slavery systems before proposing new policies to lessen modern slavery cases while reducing potential abuses of the UK’s protections.