Nicholas McGeehan: Britain is Turning its Back on Slavery and the Abolitionist Ethos

Nicholas McGeehan is a PhD candidate in the law department at the European University Institute in Florence, working under the research title 'The Marginalisation of Slavery in International Law'. He is also the founder and director of an NGO for migrant workers' rights in the UAE, Mafiwasta.

The British struggle to abolish slavery has been described as one of the most ambitious and brilliantly organised citizens' movements of all time, but in recent years there has been an inadvertent repudiation of the abolitionist ethos. Britain’s laws once again facilitate enslavement at home, while the warm welcome afforded to the rulers and branding vehicles of the United Arab Emirates means we are turning our back on slavery abroad.

Last week’s decision by home secretary Theresa May to remove the right of overseas domestic workers to change employers has been criticised in the strongest possible terms by anti-slavery campaigners, who rightly accused the government of, in effect, licensing slavery. A system of sponsorship-based employment will exacerbate the inequality of the power relationship between overseas domestic workers and their employers, and in doing so it will significantly increase the likelihood of the enslavement of thousands of young women who already constitute one of the most vulnerable sections of British society. Of the 326 migrant domestic workers who registered with Kalayaan, a London-based NGO, in 2011, 54% experienced psychological abuse, 18% physical and 7% sexual abuse. 76% were not allowed a day off, 53% worked 16 hours-a-day and 60% were paid under £50 per week.

Kalayaan have protested that the decision makes ‘no sense’ in view of David Cameron’s public support for anti-trafficking initiatives in October 2011, but one could argue that there is no contradiction between the new legislation and the type of exploitation which the British government is prepared to confront. Cameron declared that ‘the government are fully committed to combating human trafficking by tackling organised crime groups and protecting the victims of this modern day slavery.’ In doing so he perpetuated the misconception that modern day slavery is the preserve of highly organised transnational criminals, who are typically depicted as having the ability to ferry vulnerable young women across borders at will. This is a most convenient simplification of a complex issue, which on the one hand, allows states to tighten up immigration controls under the auspices of humanitarian protection, and, on the other, enables them to gloss over their own role in the facilitation of serious exploitation. One could even argue that it is the propagation of this simplistic trafficking narrative which has led, albeit indirectly and inadvertently, to a repudiation of the abolitionist ethos in the UK, more than two hundred years after slavery’s legal abolition in 1807...