LONDON: Up to 13,000 people are estimated to be kept in conditions of slavery in Britain, four times higher than was previously thought, officials said yesterday.
The Home Office figure for 2013 includes women forced into prostitution and people forced to work in factories and fields, many of them foreign nationals.
Data from another government body previously put the figure for 2013 at 2,744, but the 13,000 number is an estimate that factors in the “dark figure” of undetected cases, it said.
The figure emerged as Prime Minister David Cameron’s government launched a strategy to combat modern slavery, with new legislation likely to be passed next year.
AFP
