Universities and Modern Slavery

The role of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) is to protect vulnerable and exploited workers. In a recent case investigated by the GLAA, they found Indian students who had stopped attending classes at Greenwich, Chester and Teesside universities shortly after arriving in the UK were working in exploitative conditions in the care sector in Wales. They were working up to 80 hours a week, sometimes double shifts, for less than the minimum wage, and living in squalid conditions with up to 12 people in a three-bed apartment. The GLAA has told universities they must monitor student visas, applications, attendance and payment of fees to identify signs of modern slavery. The University of Nottinghamshire’s Rights Lab, the world’s largest group of modern slavery researchers, has also identified international student recruitment as a high-risk area and warned universities that student visas could be used to facilitate human trafficking.