New Report Assesses Modern Slavery Impacts of the Nationality and Borders Act
Today, BIICL announced the publication of a research report entitled: 'Assessing the Modern Slavery Impacts of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022: One Year On'.
The report is the main output of a project funded by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre and implemented by BIICL in partnership with the Human Trafficking Foundation and the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group. The project was funded by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (Modern Slavery PEC) through its Commissioned Research mechanism. The Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The views expressed in the summary and the full report are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Modern Slavery PEC or AHRC.
The report identifies a wide range of detrimental effects of the Nationality and Borders Act ("NABA"), categorised across impacts on decision-making outcomes, impacts on people with lived experience of modern slavery, and impacts on organisations working in the modern slavery sector.
With regard to impacts on decision-making outcomes, the research found that the higher evidentiary burden introduced as part of the operationalisation of the Act resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of positive reasonable grounds ("RG") decisions, particularly impacting adult referrals, referrals concerning Albanian nationals, and referrals for which the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority was deemed responsible. Research participants resoundingly expressed the belief that the elevated evidentiary requirements resulted in very significant numbers of persons with lived experience of modern slavery being denied identification and support through the NRM, and that it was not an effective way of meeting the stated aims of the policy. In addition, the operationalisation of the Act led to significant delays in reaching RG decisions - from a median time of 6 days pre-NABA to as high as 47 days after the implementation of the Act.
With respect to impacts on people with lived experience of modern slavery, the research highlights how the operationalised NABA measures have resulted in exclusion from the statutory support provided within the NRM mechanism. For those with a pending asylum claim based on a fear of re-trafficking or exploitation on return, the implementation of NABA - and consequent decrease in positive RG decisions - resulted in a significantly higher risk of their application being certified as 'clearly unfounded'. The changes introduced by NABA also exacerbated pre-existing issues regarding access to legal advice for people with lived experience of modern slavery on account of the increased of the demand for representation, but also on account of the increased complexity of cases.
Lastly, concerning impacts on organisations in the sector, the report spotlights the considerable uncertainty and confusion caused for organisations in the performance of their duties, made worse by the failure of the Home Office to effectively communicate the changes to the Statutory Guidance ahead of time and the lack of meaningful consultation and strategic planning around the changes. The combined effects of the NABA changes in terms of increased uncertainty, added pressure placed on organisations' capacity, and the distress caused to service users, were all reported to have taken a major toll on the mental health of staff working in this area.
The report was authored by Dr Noemi Magugliani, John Trajer and Dr Jean-Pierre Gauci.
Read the project's outputs here.
