Home Office Report on the National Referral Mechanism 2024

Sophie Blanchard is the Violence Prevention Partnership's Project and Impact Manager. For the last two years, she has summarised the Home Office Report on the National Referral Mechanism, and today, she provides a follow-up analysis for 2023.

New statistics have been released, summarising information on people who have been identified as potential victims of modern slavery in the UK in 2023. The statistical bulletin provides a breakdown of the number of potential victims that were referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) or via the Duty to Notify process. It breaks down the data in several ways, including via the victims’ nationalities, gender, type of exploitation they experienced, and whether they were adults or children (under 18) at the time of exploitation.

The term ‘potential victims’denote that these are the figures relating to individuals referred into the NRM, or via the Duty to Notify process. These figures are likely to be significantly lower once individuals have been through the NRM’s two-tier decision-making process to determine that, on the balance of probabilities, a competent authority believes them to meet the definition of being victims of modern slavery.

The NRM, which was established in 2009, is the framework used in the UK to identify and support potential victims of modern slavery who have been identified by a set list of First Responders¹. The Duty to Notify process collects data on adults who do not consent to be referred to the NRM (children are not required to give consent). Combined, these figures give an estimate of the picture of modern slavery in the UK.

How many people have been identified?

In 2023, 17,004 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK were referred to the Home Office, which is a small increase to the 16,938 potential victims² who were referred into the NRM in 2022. The number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK shows a pattern of yearly increases as illustrated in the table below (apart from a slight decrease in 2020, commonly noted to be a result of the national lockdowns in response to the Covid-19 pandemic).

The number of referrals received in 2023 has been the highest since the NRM began in 2009. However, the increase in referrals does not necessarily correlate with there being more victims but could indicate that First Responders are improving at identifying potential victims. Reports via the Duty to Notify process alone have increased from 4,580 reports in 2022 to 4,929 reports of potential victims in 2023, which indicates a better awareness of this system amongst professionals.

Are the victims adults or children?

Of the potential victims identified in 2023, 950 (5%) were of unknown age, 8,622 (51%) were adults which has decreased from 52% in 2022, and 7,432 (44%) were children (minors under the age of 18) which is the highest this figure has been. After October 2019, when criminal exploitation was set as its own category of exploitation (where previously it was counted within labour exploitation), which made it easier to identify the different types of exploitation to which potential victims were being subjected, referrals indicated that labour exploitation was the most common form of exploitation suffered by adults, while minors (under 18) were more likely to be victims of criminal exploitation. This year’s statistics continue this trend, with these still being the most common forms of exploitation for adult and child victims of modern slavery, respectively. In 2023, labour exploitation was the most reported form of exploitation amongst adult potential victims with 2,902 examples (34%), whereas child potential victims were most often referred for criminal exploitation with 3,123 examples (42%)^3.

What is the gender of the victims?

Of those 17,004 identified in 2023, 12,903 (76%) were male and 4,088 (24%) were female. This is the highest annual number of potential female victims since the NRM began. The remaining 13 are categorised under ‘not specified or unknown’ or ‘other’. Male referrals had been gradually increasing each year since the NRM began but have fallen slightly between 2022 and 2023. In 2023, 73% of adult potential victims (6,874) and 80% of child potential victims (5,918) were male, whilst 27% of adult potential victims (2,344) and 20% of child potential victims (1,507) were female. The majority of female potential victims, both adults and children, were victims of sexual exploitation.

What are the nationalities of the victims?

The most common nationalities of potential victims identified in the UK in 2023 were UK, Albanian and Vietnamese respectively. UK nationals accounted for 4,299 (25%) of potential victims which means a 3% increase in volume since 2022. In 2023 Albanian nationals accounted for 4,052 (24%) of potential victims referred into the NRM which marks a large decrease from the previous year, where Albanian nationals were the highest nationality constituting 27% of 2022’s victims. Vietnamese nationals made up 991 (6%) of the potential victims in 2023, which has shown a rise from the fifth most common nationality in 2022 to the third most common nationality in 2023.

What types of exploitation have the victims experienced?

The data tables which provide the breakdown of information on referrals include a summary of the types of exploitation suffered by those identified as potential victims. These include criminal exploitation, labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and organ harvesting. The data summarises the number of referrals for each category of exploitation, including where multiple forms of exploitation were experienced (please see above for more detail on the differences in exploitation type by adults/children). Looking at cases where only one form of exploitation was experienced, the most common form of exploitation identified in 2023 was criminal exploitation, with 4,543 referrals. In 2022, however, labour exploitation was the most common form of exploitation identified. In 2023, labour exploitation made up 4,352 of the referrals, and sexual exploitation made up 1,589 of the referrals made. However, a large number of referrals, 1,739 cases, were referred under ‘not specified or unknown’ exploitation, which raises concerns over the level of detail provided within the referral forms.

If you have any questions, contact Sophie Blanchard.

Find out more about how the NRM works and see more information on recent changes to policy guidance.

¹ First Responders are a list of professionals identified by the Home Office who have the responsibility of referring potential victims into the NRM.

² There is a discrepancy in the 2023 statistics release which states that 16,921 potential victims were referred in 2022 to the NRM. However, this blog refers directly to the original source of the 2022 statistics

³ In 2022, the figure for adult labour exploitation was 3,433 (39%), and the figure for child criminal exploitation was 3,013 (43%).