AD5803 - Modern Slavery project

For this assignment, I really want to focus my attention on the theme of modern slavery in the UK.

This hot topic has taken my attention since I read an article in December, and after that I have been keeping to get more information about it.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that there were 136,000 people living in modern slavery in the United Kingdom in 2016, most people are trafficked into the UK from overseas, but there is also a significant number of British nationals in slavery. The most common countries of origin are Albania, Vietnam, Nigeria, Romania and Poland. Most commonly people are trafficked into forced labour in industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality, manufacturing and car washes. Many women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

Typically, a person coming from a situation of poverty and lack of opportunity gets an offer of an apparently good job in the UK. Often the victim has to take a loan from an agent to pay for the recruitment fees and for the journey.

When the person arrives in Britain, the job and the conditions they were promised are completely different.

Their passport is taken away, and they’re told they need to pay off the debt before they can leave. Violence or threats are common practice, both against the victim as well as their family back home.

Sources:

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/united-kingdom/

https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/slavery-uk/

My ideal project would be making a book collecting the stories of exploitation of people who have been involved in slavery. My main concern is how to make a series without exploiting and exposing those people, I would never accept the idea to simply taking portraits, I have to give something, otherwise I would feel like stealing pictures and mistreat these people who have already been exploited.

Since human slavery is something happing all around us, right under our noses, my main goal is evidencing this fact, that slavery is absolutely not only a third-world issue and everybody, even us, can be involved.

For this reason I would like to take pictures of the victims completely or partially out of focus and write their stories over it. Slavery (unlike we usually think) DOES NOT have a stereotypical face. It can be both white or black, it can be you, it can be myself, our relatives, friends, co-workers, neighbours...

The most difficult part, due to the vulnerability of the people who have been involved, is having access to victims groups.

Here I made a list of contacts:

https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/contact-us contacted - denied

https://www.unseenuk.org/contact-us contacted - denied

https://www.justiceandcare.org/get-involved/ contacted- denied

https://hopeforjustice.org/contact-us/ contacted - denied

https://jericho.org.uk/about-modern-slavery/ contacted

https://www.modernslaveryhelpline.org/contact-us

https://www.antislavery.org/contact-us/ contacted

https://www.humantraffickingfoundation.org/contact/ Kate contacted

https://www.aspartnership.org.uk/contact contacted

https://safefromslavery.com/ contacted

https://sophiehayesfoundation.org/contact-us/ contacted

https://freeforgood.org.uk/contact/ contacted

https://www.labourexploitation.org/what-we-do/empowering-trafficked-persons

http://www.westmidlandsantislavery.org/contact/

http://www.medaille-trust.org.uk/contacts

https://www.hestia.org/

http://www.nomoretraffik.com/join-us/

https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/more-us/contact-us

info@survivoralliance.org

They are inundated by project proposals like mine and it is very difficult to get the consent.

At the moment I am still trying to get the access to at least one of these organisations/supporting groups, but I am planning alternative solutions in case no one give me the permission.

What can I do then?

1- Collaborate with the same groups of my current project with the African Diaspora and Windrush Community

I am currently working on a collaborative project recording the stories of the black communities in Cheltenham / Gloucester. The same people had many experiences of exploitation and also other contacts that can collaborate with me.

2 - Making a mock documentary

This option really intrigues me, since, as I said, slavery DOES NOT have face and all the human beings suffer indiscriminately, it would be interesting to take pictures of people and matching them with someone else's story. This would possibly strengthen my message and overcome the obstacle of getting access.

3 - Taking pictures of common places where slavery may be happening

Another idea I had was taking pictures of familiar places where we don't think something like slavery may be happening. I did some researches on internet and I found another photographer who has recently published a book with this same idea.

In her book The Dark Figure*, Amy Romer trawled news and police reports for modern slavery crimes, and travelled around the UK to take pictures. The final work is a series of images which represents ordinary places (including Cheltenham) without any presence of people, in which it is hard to believe that acts of slavery took place and the audience is brought to reflect about how close we actually are to this issue.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/feb/02/amy-romer-dark-figure-interview-photographs-modern-slavery-locations

https://www.amyromer.com/the-dark-figure58

The idea of a project about modern slavery, evolved in the back of my mind since last year when Julian Germain came for a talk.

Julian made a project on commission for Ffotogallery, this is the description:

In 2014 Julian Germain was commissioned to respond to the life story of Nathaniel Wells (1779 - 1852) who was born into slavery on the island of St Kitts in the Caribbean, the illegitimate child of a slave woman and sugar plantation owner. Extraordinarily, Nathaniel was sent to Britain to be educated and subsequently inherited his father’s fortune, along with the sugar plantations and slaves, including his own mother. In 1802, at the age of only 24 and a ‘black’ man of African descent, he purchased one of the finest houses in Wales, Piercefield House near Chepstow. From there, he lived the life of a country gentleman, became a magistrate, deputy lieutenant and County Sheriff. Germain has retraced the steps of Nathaniel Wells from his now derelict estate at Piercefield to his birthplace in the West Indies. The images reflect upon the sugar industry, slavery and colonialism - the ongoing significance of the deep historical links between the two locations, as well as how the global social and economic landscape continues to necessitate migration and how this movement of people affects everyday life in Wales.

I remember him telling us about the stories of human trafficking involved with the car wash in the UK. I found that extremely tragic and interesting so I kept it as a starting point for a future project.

This is a video of his series: