ON anti-slavery day, Tom Hayes, Oxford City Council's lead on community safety, reveals the work he and the local authority is doing to spot the signs of abuse and help victims.

TODAY is Anti-Slavery Day.

Today, there will be a girl, trapped, crying herself to sleep again, hoping that one day she might not be treated like a piece of property for sale, but as a human being.

Many of us thought slavery was an evil from a distant past, being outlawed centuries ago, but it’s a problem in the form of modern day slavery and it’s closer to home than you might have thought.

Everyone has the power to stop modern day slavery, but many people don’t know it is going on or what it looks like.

The most conservative estimate suggests that last year there were 533 victims of modern slavery in the Thames Valley area, with 120 reports across the police force area in Oxfordshire in the last two years.

Slavery isn’t something that is so secret that it cannot be detected.

So much of it can take place in plain sight – people obviously undernourished and working on building sites or farms, nail bars where people are working for excessively long shifts, or car wash operations that feel exploitative and wrong.

It can include forced labour, domestic servitude, forced begging, organised theft and forced marriage.

It’s seen across all sectors from fishing to food production, hospitality and social care - as well as in sexual exploitation.

So often the dominant feature of criminality today, exploitation of vulnerability is at the heart of modern day slavery.

It’s common for victims of modern day slavery to be specifically targeted by exploiters because of their vulnerability - whether it’s a learning disability, an alcohol or drug addiction, or mental ill health.

The consequences of these crimes can be life-changing for victims, but because of their nature they can often go undetected or unreported.

That’s why the city council raises awareness and reporting of abuses hidden at the heart of communities that often go undetected or unreported.

Modern slavery could be happening in your community so if you suspect it, report it on 101 or 999 in an emergency.

Oxford City Council has been tackling modern slavery and supporting victims.

We helped to set up Hotel Watch, which trains hoteliers in how to spot the signs of exploitation, including child sexual exploitation and modern slavery, and what to do if they believe something suspicious is happening on their premises.

We introduced mandatory safeguarding training for all taxi drivers that it licences to operate in the city, and worked with neighbouring districts to roll this training out to all taxi drivers across Oxfordshire.

And our community safety team came up with the idea of the Independent Trauma Adviser role - a role which simultaneously delivers crisis intervention for new victims and offers ongoing support and advocacy for victims.

Last month I submitted a motion to the city council which asked the question ‘how long is long enough for victims to start putting their lives back together again?’

The Government protects people for a 45-day period then leaves them to figure out how to move on from a safe home after suffering unimaginable experiences.

That isn’t right, so all councillors called on the government to extend support from 45 days to a year - something Co-operative Party peers have been calling for in Parliament.

The city council and other public authorities help people to escape from the grip of their abusers and, with a better approach from government, could be empowered to do more to support victims to recover and rebuild lives.

This Anti-Slavery Day, I hope more people become aware that, for all the progress that we’ve made, the bitter truth is that slavery goes on right here in Oxford.

The tragedy of slavery is that it is a condition of human making, driven by greed and those that would make a profit from excessively cheap labour.

But, together, we can spot it, stop it, and drive slavery from Oxford.