 |
A
CAR wash owner was been jailed for four years after one of his employees was
electrocuted while showering in “rat-infested” living quarters provided by the
business.
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Tricked into washing cars
in London for 12 hours a day without pay and treated like a slave, Bogdan quit
after a week - hoping to find a better job after his move to Britain from
Romania.
Thomson
Reuters Foundation report continues:
His
hopes were short-lived. That night, three men visited the room he had rented
from the car wash owners and ordered him to open a string of bank accounts
using fake identity documents.
"They
raised their voices, and were aggressive," the 31-year-old told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation, declining to give his real name out of fear of
retribution by his enslavers.
"I
was very scared, and emotional, so I accepted it."
Thousands
of workers in hand car washes across Britain are believed to be modern slaves -
mostly men lured from Eastern European countries such as Albania and Bulgaria
with promises of paid work, housing and better job opportunities in the future.
Yet
many end up trapped in debt bondage, forced to live and work in squalid and
unsafe conditions, stripped of their documents and subjected to threats, abuse
and violence.
Some
slaves, such as Bogdan, are coerced to commit crimes - afraid for their lives
and for their families if they refuse.
At
least 13,000 people across the country are estimated by the government to be
living in modern slavery but police say that the true figure is likely to be in
the tens of thousands.
While
forced labour is rife among Britain's building sites, nail bars, factories and
farms, car wash slavery is rocketing with unregulated sites sprouting up
rapidly nationwide, according to the country's anti-slavery agency and chief.
Police
are ramping up investigations but say the crime is tough to crack with 20,000
car washes believed to be flouting laws, most victims too scared to speak out,
and the increasingly cash-squeezed British public hunting for ever cheaper
services.
"This
is modern slavery on an industrial scale," said Lysbeth Ford of the
Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), Britain's anti-slavery body.
"The government and the police are not yet aware of the extent of car wash
slavery".
"It
has exploded because workers are being underpaid or not paid at all - creating
an environment ripe for exploitation."
HIVES
OF CRIME
In
several London car washes visited by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, many
employees were not wearing protective clothing while most were unwilling to talk
about their pay or living conditions, and pointed to their bosses when
questioned further.
While
such workers are in plain sight - not hidden away like slaves in brothels,
houses, and cannabis farms - their fear and reluctance to speak out makes it
difficult to identify and help victims, said global anti-trafficking charity
Hope for Justice.
"When
you visit a car wash and ask workers about their situation, they parrot the
same rehearsed line about being paid the minimum wage and not working more than
40 hours each week," said Lauren Batty, who works for the group in
northern England.
When
police suspect slavery at a car wash, they seek out all possible intelligence -
from analysis of its finances to covert surveillance - before raiding a site in
the hope of persuading workers to come forward, or securing a victimless
prosecution.
If
officers fail to get victims on board, and quickly, they often disappear and
end up being re-trafficked, said detective sergeant Dan Parkinson of the
police's anti-slavery unit.
"It's
hard to get victims to engage," he said. "They may have negative
perceptions of the police, or fear deportation."
"Many
people don't even consider themselves victims because £1 (US$1.30) an hour is
better than earning nothing at home."
About
a tenth of 400 live police operations tackling slavery in Britain involve car
washes, up from 5% of nearly 200 at the end of last year, according to the
latest police figures.
While
the crime is ever-evolving in Britain, the 2015 Modern Slavery Act gave police
new powers to restrict the movements and actions of suspected traffickers
before and during operations, and imposed the threat of life imprisonment for
slave masters.
Such
measures are crucial to combat slavery and other crimes in car washes, where
various offences - from drug trafficking to benefit fraud - often intersect,
the police's Parkinson said.
"These
are cash businesses, easy to run and hide criminality - ideal for exploiting
people while generating high turnover."
PUBLIC
POWER
The
public also have a role to play - by refusing to use car washes offering
rock-bottom prices and reporting possible cases of exploitation and signs of
slavery - campaigners say.
Many
London car washes provide a full valet for £30 (US$40), compared to £100 (US$130)
just a few years ago.
Yet
the death of a Romanian worker in 2015 - electrocuted in the shower of the
derelict London flat owned by his boss - was a "wake-up call" about
the harsh reality, and dangers, facing many car wash staff, said Britain's anti-slavery
tsar, Kevin Hyland.
"Car
washes have operated with impunity and popped up rapidly as they have gone
unchallenged for so long," he said. "But this is in the public eye
... we all need to do more."
And
data from a British anti-slavery helpline, run by the charity Unseen, suggests
the public are playing their part.
Of
112 cases of potential car wash slavery recorded between October 2016 and
August this year and referred on to the authorities and charities - involving
about 700 possible victims - two-thirds were reported by the public, Unseen
said.
"It
is so important to get the public understanding what they are looking at,"
said Justine Currell, executive director of Unseen. "If it appears too
good to be true, it probably is."
But
for most slaves in Britain, the idea of relying on anyone - whether police or
public - is fanciful and risky.
While
Bogdan is now free, having escaped his enslavers and gone to the police in 2015
after they got drunk one night and left the fake identity documents lying
around, he recalled how fear and uncertainty trapped him in slavery for weeks
on end.
"Before
that night, I didn't run away, I couldn't run away, because I didn't think I
would ever be believed," he said.
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