A New Tool for Reaching Isolated Victims

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Hope for Justice UK has rolled out a new tool to reach one of the most at-risk populations; a Multilingual Rescue flyer for non-English speaking migrants.

In the UK there is a significant community of people hoping to start a new life, free from the desperate situations they faced in their home country.  They arrive on UK soil legally and prepared to work hard for a fair wage. However, too many have been recruited and manipulated by false promises and when they arrive in the UK they find themselves trapped here. At the mercy of others because they do not speak the native language and can not ask for help. They have used all their savings to travel here and have no way to return home or even to contact home.

Traffickers understand and exploit this vulnerability and use it to their advantage; coercing men, women and children into forced labor or sexual exploitation through threats, abuse and manipulation. Traffickers confiscate victims’ passports and claim that debts for travel and accommodation must be repaid before any wages will be paid. Often victims are moved from place to place so that they don’t even know where in the country they are. They become totally isolated.

Sadly, many of these victims come from source countries where the police are untrustworthy. Others have been led to believe that our own police can not be trusted. Victims become completely isolated, cut-off from all escape.

Recognizing the need to dig deeper into these migrant communities, our frontline Investigators developed a multilingual resource to help communicate with potential victims of human trafficking. The Multilingual Rescue Flyer outlines the signs of human trafficking and exploitation and provides emergency contact information in eight different languages. It’s already being deployed by the Investigators at our two Regional Investigative Hubs in the UK. It’s our hope that this resource will offer a lifeline to victims of human trafficking, giving them a way to ask for help and make the vital connection to our services.

Victims of trafficking are often hidden and usually excluded from society. At Hope for Justice we’re committed to reaching out to the most vulnerable and pioneering new ways to get the the help they need into their hands.

If you’re in the UK and work with migrant populations, contact our programs team about receiving copies of the Multilingual Rescue Flyer to distribute in your community or at your service.