Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle human trafficking in developing countries.

DFID is at the forefront of the UK’s efforts to tackle modern slavery, one of the biggest human rights challenges of our time. The UK launched the Call to Action to end forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking in 2017 and it has now been endorsed by close to 90 countries. The UK will continue to take a leading role driving change through the multilateral system to help achieve sustainable development goal (SDG) 8.7 and other relevant goals to end modern slavery in all its forms.

Using UK Aid which now totals over £200m, our programmes work to reduce vulnerability to exploitation and address the permissive environments that allow modern slavery and human trafficking to thrive. We are supporting countries’ efforts to tackle the root causes of trafficking by: creating jobs and livelihoods; changing business and recruitment practices to eradicate exploitation in supply chains; helping build law enforcement capacity increase detection and prosecution of perpetrators; and improving services to protect victims.