Author: The Anti-Slavery Collective

I have been a Metropolitan Police Officer for over 31 years. For much of my career, I have worked with some of the most vulnerable people in London. 

How can I actually make a difference here? What could I do that would even make a mark? Surely there are way more qualified, capable people to tackle this issue than me? These were the questions I was confronted with having first become aware of modern slavery through an A21 campaign in Norway, aged 18….Read More

Most people in the United Kingdom think that slavery was abolished in the 19th century because of the work of courageous abolitionists like William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln. Sadly however, slavery still flourishes globally today, and every country is home to this crime. In the UK, the National Crime Agency estimates that at least 13,000…Read More

For me,  it always comes back to girls. Brilliant, beautiful, powerful adolescent girls – more than 900 million around the world – with the power to create a future for themselves. Girls who are brimming with potential, but due to so many factors, far of out of their control, may never be able to achieve…Read More

Modern Slavery is a blight on the 21st century.  It is astonishing to think that the first prosecution of a case of modern slavery came only in 2011, given that since then, I have been involved in cases where over 100 people have been convicted of offences concerning over 500 victims.  How could this crime…Read More

Nadia Murad and Yazda deputy executive director Ahmed Khudida Burjus (left), met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in December 2015 after Ms Murad spoke at the UN Security Council’s first-ever session on human trafficking in armed conflict. I was studying at get my masters degree at University of Nottingham with only two months left in…Read More

Modern slavery is a growing crime, a grave abuse and a gross injustice. Tackling it presents multiple challenges, but no challenge is so great that it serves as an excuse to let this issue persist. Having served 30 years in policing, I have come across many vulnerable people who suffered at the hands of brutal…Read More

I recently attended an event in Los Angeles for leading investors and bankers from across the US where I spoke to a new acquaintance about the work I’ve done over the past decade in the anti-slavery movement. “Slavery? “Like, actual slavery?”” my new friend, a top employee of the hosting firm, asked. He was stunned…Read More

I was born in 1968 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  I grew up during the height of the ‘troubles,’ a conflict which would see over 3000 people killed.  At 19, I joined a police forced entitled the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and was soon stationed in South Armagh, working with the military to patrol the area.  At…Read More