How do we understand the causes of modern slavery? We listen.
Dr Alicia Heys, a Lecturer in Modern Slavery at the University of Hull’s Wilberforce Institute, works with people who have experienced modern slavery and human trafficking and the people who support them to bring about change.
Her work on the links between conflict and modern slavery has been used to train over 50 state, civil and law enforcement organisations across Europe, including war crimes investigators, border guards, anti-trafficking authorities, Ombudsmen, the Red Cross and other refugee agencies. As the chair of, Humber Modern Slavery Partnership, Alicia leads over 60 organisations to combat and prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in our region.
Alicia’s current work focuses on researching the Legal Enforcement of Modern Slavery. This work is two-fold, as she works to protect the victims from unfair prosecution and to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice.
She has investigated the UK’s application of the non-punishment principle which seeks to ensure victims of modern slavery or human trafficking aren’t punished for crimes they were forced to commit as part of their exploitation. She is also exploring how financial investigations could be used to increase the number of convictions of perpetrators under the Modern Slavery Act.
She teaches on the Criminal Justice and Crime Control MA programme, and supervises PhD students studying modern slavery, human trafficking, exploitation, and exploitative migration.