Huge increase in suspected victims of slavery and trafficking, National Crime Agency

The number of suspected victims of slavery and human trafficking has more than doubled in three years.

There were 3,805 people reported as potential victims in 2016, an increase from 1,745 in 2013, according to National Crime Agency (NCA) statistics.

Britons, Albanians and Vietnamese were the most commonly reported suspected victims, the NCA report said.

Most commonly, adults and children were suspected of being exploited for their labour, such as working on cannabis farms, with 1,575 such claims last year.

Sexual exploitation was the second most commonly reported cases, with 1,313 allegations.

Tamara Barnett, from the Human Trafficking Foundation charity, told the BBC she believed the rise was down to an increased understanding of the offences following the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

“It used to be very much seen as just the trafficking of women into the sex trade,” she said.

“There was quite a narrow view of what it involved but now there is definitely a broader view of what is human trafficking.”

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2017, All Rights Reserved.}