![]() as soon as you become removed from your employees, you increase the risk of trafficking," Garbers told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Forced labour is most common in teams such as cleaning and housekeeping where subcontractors are used. The Modern Slavery Bill, which became law in March, requires British businesses to disclose what action they have taken to ensure their products and services are free of slave labour. ![]() "People can book hotel rooms online and remain faceless, which makes it problematic to spot cases of trafficking," said Garbers, who has also trained police, healthcare providers and border staff in Britain.īut a new British law designed to stamp out slavery could help hotels to clean up their supply chains, Garbers said. Traffickers in the hospitality sector often book a hotel room for a couple of nights and force their female victims to have sex with clients who have paid for their services in advance, according to Kate Garbers, managing director of Unseen. While the numbers may seem small, the hidden nature of modern slavery means its prevalence in the hospitality sector is likely to be much higher, said the NCA, Britain's equivalent of the U.S. Trafficking victims in the hospitality industry are often eastern European men and women who are promised a job in Britain but then stripped of their identity documents and forced to work for little or no money.Īround one percent of forced labour victims in Britain worked in the restaurant or bar sector in 2013, while four percent of sexual exploitation victims were abused in hotels, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA). "Modern slavery is not specific to a certain type of hotel, it doesn't discriminate between a budget or five star hotel - it goes across the board," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at London's Hampton by Hilton hotel. "The hospitality industry is a hub for human trafficking," said Meenal Sachdev, director of the Shiva Foundation, the anti-trafficking arm of the Shiva Hotel group, which is working with Unseen to train staff across its 10 hotels in England. Yet human traffickers are increasingly looking for opportunities to exploit the hospitality industry, which employs more than 2.4 million people and contributes some 34 billion pounds ($53 billion) to Britain's economy, campaigners say. Many are forced to work in factories and farms, sold for sex in brothels, or imprisoned in domestic servitude, in a global industry estimated to generate $150 billion a year in profits for those who exploit or enslave them. There are as many as 13,000 victims of slavery in Britain, according to the Home Office (interior ministry). In the first training of its kind in Britain, anti-trafficking charity Unseen is advising the general managers and heads of operations of several major hotels across England how to combat modern slavery within the hospitality industry.įrom adults and children sexually exploited in hotels, to sub-contracted staff made to work for little or no money, to goods produced in distant places by forced labour, modern slavery lurks throughout the industry, experts say. ![]() LONDON, May 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A world away from the cotton fields of Uzbekistan and garment factories across India and Nepal, the managers of a luxury hotel group in central London are learning how to stamp out supply chain slavery and identify victims of sexual exploitation. From people sexually exploited in hotels, to unpaid sub-contracted staff, modern slavery lurks throughout the industry
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