162 Jakub Sobik — Modern Slavery & Human Rights PEC

[00:00:12] Well, welcome back everybody to the Social World podcast. You can Google thoughts on the social

[00:00:18] world. We're willing to our 11th year now and after this summer break it's a delight

[00:00:26] to have you all back again. We've got a very important subject again today, a very difficult

[00:00:32] subject, some would argue but I think you'll agree that it's going to be fascinating. My

[00:00:38] guest today is Jakub Sobik, who is the communications director for the modern slavery

[00:00:45] and human rights policy and evidence center but will refer to it during the conversation

[00:00:51] as PEC. So welcome Jakub, welcome to the program. Hello, thank you for having me. Okay.

[00:01:01] Now you're the communications director and your background has been steeped in working

[00:01:06] against slavery and working for human rights. Could you just tell people this now a little bit

[00:01:13] about your own background first? Sure, yes I have a journalism background so I did a bit of journalism.

[00:01:22] I come from Poland but I always wanted to get into human rights that's what always

[00:01:28] interested me. And after moving to London I found a little job in an organization called

[00:01:37] Dante Slavery International which is the oldest human rights organization in the world,

[00:01:43] funded by William Wilberforce and people who were working on that campaign to start the

[00:01:55] region of historical slavery. And so I've been there for 13 years so I've focused on a lot

[00:02:06] of both UK and international work to stop all forms of one slavery from kind of working through

[00:02:17] the process of composing in the UK to create the modern slavery act in 2015 to working on

[00:02:24] issues such as exploitation for migrant workers, for example in Qatar in the run up to the

[00:02:32] FIFA World Cup or different forms of slavery such as depth-bondage in India or exploitation

[00:02:40] and slavery in the fishing industry and in the cotton industry in this Pakistan all forms

[00:02:48] of modern slavery across the world. Which are much more than people think. I mean we had this

[00:02:53] conversation with others working in the same field as you and people sometimes just don't realize

[00:02:59] just how widespread the whole issue of slavery is and it's I mean everybody sort of thinks oh

[00:03:04] sex slaves little chained up in a cellar and stuff like that well that does happen of course it does

[00:03:10] but it's so much wider. Let's talk a little bit about peck because you're nominally based at Oxford

[00:03:17] University is that right? That's right we just move across to Oxford University recently

[00:03:24] we started we we funded by the arts and humanities research council so we get academic funding

[00:03:34] for the first five years of our existence we are hosted by the British Institute of International

[00:03:40] and comparative law or be equal for short and after the first five years of funding we moved

[00:03:50] across to Oxford University recently yes. Okay so you all based all over the place but

[00:04:03] what's the geography involved in terms of what range do you cover in terms of is it worldwide

[00:04:08] or a more specific in Europe? Yeah the modest slavery pack basically maybe I should introduce

[00:04:16] the modern slavery and human rights pack to to the listeners first what we do. We basically

[00:04:23] fund and produce a recent modern slavery but we don't stop there for us it's all about

[00:04:30] the impact of that research so we translate that research into into something that's used

[00:04:36] for policymakers and other decision makers so could be businesses could be practitioners

[00:04:42] could be international organizations on what are the most effective ways to address slavery

[00:04:50] and try to inform a policies and laws that can address that issue and the issue of exploitation of

[00:04:58] people. We based in the University of Oxford well majority of our team we kind of

[00:05:06] scattered we we based in London most of us some colleagues are based elsewhere so we started

[00:05:13] doing the pandemics and we kind of used to working remotely and online we cover our research

[00:05:21] covers a lot of UK issues and that takes up a lot of that's taken up a lot of our attention

[00:05:30] in the first place but we don't stop there we've done a lot of research that

[00:05:36] looks at modern slavery globally for example a big part of our first phase research

[00:05:45] was focused on impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and we looked at issues

[00:05:53] especially in global context of global supply chains and how this is operates and

[00:06:00] where forced labor exploitation can be found and what the impact of the pandemic was on global

[00:06:05] supply chains and so we've done a lot of research on that as well. Well let's talk let's separate

[00:06:11] these two things for a little bit what you're refer to the beginning maybe you could just give us

[00:06:16] a little bit of an idea of as you said about what you're doing in the UK and then we can

[00:06:21] elaborate it a bit to look at the worldwide issues because I mean I fully understand that

[00:06:26] you know no country stands alone these days everything is intertwined and everything is a very

[00:06:31] small world we live in sometimes what are the particular issues in the UK that you're focusing on

[00:06:39] as broad as anything. Our research is kind of dividing into four major strands one is prevention

[00:06:48] the second one is effectiveness of effectiveness of legal measures there are super

[00:06:57] patterns and I should know the fourth one by heart and it escapes me so hopefully the listeners will

[00:07:06] give me. Well let's talk let's talk with the prevention side I think I mean everybody's

[00:07:13] quite keen on that a bit I mean there's just so much do you link with law enforcement

[00:07:19] with frontline services social services except for local authorities do you manage to link in

[00:07:26] or do you just literally provide them with data? No I think that that's one of major

[00:07:32] principles of our work is collaboration we build partnerships across across the spectrum

[00:07:39] of people who might have an mistaken address in the modern slavery so that's a major part of

[00:07:47] our work of bringing people together and that means bringing policy makers into together with researchers

[00:07:56] but also businesses also practitioners also NGOs and charities that work on that

[00:08:04] and very importantly people who were affected by modern slavery that is the major part of our

[00:08:13] work in trying to bring survivors into research and not only is the subjects of that research but also

[00:08:21] those who actually have a say in what should be what should be research how it should be

[00:08:29] research and what the research is going to actually say so the more survivor voices we have

[00:08:36] the better research gets and the more informed it gets to bring in together all those partners

[00:08:42] is very important to us and I can work in many different ways for example one of the problems with

[00:08:50] research not on the modern slavery but on other things I'm adding issues I imagine as well

[00:08:57] is that it can feel like it happens a little bit in a vacuum it's really important to us

[00:09:04] that what we research is informed by the needs of police makers or what they try to do and what

[00:09:11] they realistically can do to address modern slavery in their capacity so it's important that we

[00:09:19] understand what they need otherwise the research is going to be carried out but it's not necessarily

[00:09:28] going to inform current policies and kind of inform the policy cycle so that's one example of how

[00:09:36] it works but you also try to bring together our partners into inter-research I think academic

[00:09:47] isolated from other it's like it's like the separate world so we try to make more equitable and

[00:09:55] more accessible for example we made it a requirement. All our projects that funded by the one

[00:10:04] in slavery pack has to have a non-according partner on the research just to bring it together just

[00:10:12] to bring people together but also make it much more relatable to do the real world so it does.

[00:10:17] It's not right I understand that and I think that's a very good thing to have done because

[00:10:22] to be quite honest coming across lots of people especially those that work in the front line

[00:10:27] they don't often relate to or connect with just pure academia the idea of having things that

[00:10:37] relate you know having a way to sort of show how it relates to their work I think is very important

[00:10:41] I mean as you said too I mean over the last year I've done a program with a company that does

[00:10:49] supply chain auditing. She's obviously something you refer to there and I mean the complexity

[00:10:56] and the scale of that is huge I imagine you've come across that problem yourself.

[00:11:03] Absolutely that's one of the biggest problems that we face in terms of

[00:11:08] dressing-button slavery. It's a relatively new issue in terms of how it's framed and how it's

[00:11:17] how it's talked about when I started an unslavine tenational over 15 years ago no one even

[00:11:23] knew that slavery still existed when I talked to Janley's the first person who oh wow like

[00:11:28] I had no idea that existed to be honest when I started the phrase itself modern slavery didn't really

[00:11:36] exist or it wasn't really widely used it's it really happened in the last decade or so

[00:11:43] so and I'm not a slavery being such a complex problem of of many many forms of exploitation

[00:11:50] so what we're talking about here we can talk about even in UK we can talk about British teenagers being

[00:11:57] recruited and equation to selling and trafficking drugs but we could talk about children like

[00:12:04] Farrah being exploited in domestic servitude but we could talk about people being exploited I don't know

[00:12:12] building our homes or do now an ale or a car's all these forms and come with completely different

[00:12:22] set of factors and circumstances and situations so modern slavery is an umbrella term

[00:12:31] that tries to kind of bring all these forms of exploitation together but it that means that

[00:12:38] monoslavery is hugely complex issue and the solutions to it are hugely complex and we always have to

[00:12:47] kind of look at the solutions holistically so I think that's one of the biggest problems how to

[00:12:52] explain it and how to kind of address that complexity and how to can I just ask you just before we

[00:13:00] get off that part of it how to actually factor it into training in safeguarding for those that

[00:13:08] work in the front line I mean I say this because my background was in social work and it's mainly child

[00:13:15] protection but you know what protecting the vulnerable essentially and effectively there was not

[00:13:21] been there never was much training on modern slavery or human trafficking or any of the other

[00:13:29] things that you know cast your attention on to so for example domestic slavery or those that

[00:13:38] are brought into and UK as well to work in cannabis farms or those that are actually made to work

[00:13:46] in sweatshop conditions to service the cheap clothes that we buy or the food that we get I mean it's

[00:13:54] just enormous and I saw how can you influence the front line training to actually make them

[00:14:03] better at their jobs and make them spot what is this now huge and emerging problem.

[00:14:11] I think that again it's quite a complex problem but I think it's well to start with I think

[00:14:16] the awareness of monoslavery has reason quite considerably over the last few years

[00:14:23] but a lot of work remains to be done and our research tries to impound at first example

[00:14:30] a recent project was on children with special needs and disabilities and how easily they

[00:14:38] get coarsed into drug trafficking into so-called cantalines practice and that happens because

[00:14:48] as children with special needs they struggle at school they tend to struggle school and they

[00:14:56] get excluded rather than supported so it's really hard to get recognition of the need

[00:15:02] is then it takes ages to get referrals and to get the proper support so what happens very often they end up

[00:15:10] excluded from school sometimes even completely from outer school who we kind of give these

[00:15:17] children the way to the streets to put them in hands away the address of being easy targets for those

[00:15:24] guns to recruit them so it's one of those things that where we try to look at those

[00:15:32] factors and spread the word and work with practitioners and we do work with a lot of

[00:15:38] partners through our research teams and through directly through the center to

[00:15:45] inform them how to spot those things and what to pay attention to. I think now that last part

[00:15:53] there are two really intrigued me because I've done a lot of work with an organization that's

[00:15:57] written based called ATI which is the anti-trafficking intelligence initiative and one of

[00:16:04] their more recent projects of initiatives is really taking off it is well essentially follow the

[00:16:11] money and they've got forensic accountants and all sorts of people and they're training front

[00:16:17] line staff in the finance industry whether it's insurance or banking or any of the other big

[00:16:24] finance out this to spot anomalies to spot problems to support difficult behavior or

[00:16:34] odd behavior things that might lead to kind of people having problems you know just the whole

[00:16:39] way of it and I talked to a finance she'll account and who specializes in anti-trafficking from Canada

[00:16:46] I mean that is an enormous issue and if you multiply that by all the different things that you've just

[00:16:53] said I mean the problem is huge I mean the numbers are staggering aren't they?

[00:17:01] Yes that's right and I'm just staggering and it's one of the one of the kind of sides that we can

[00:17:08] attack this problem from. I think to address modern slavery you have to not only break it down into

[00:17:18] lots of different different forms of exploitation and kind of pay attention to the kind of specific

[00:17:27] circumstances but also just look at the whole problem holistically and try to

[00:17:35] try to prevent it and look at why the policies that set up the exploitation

[00:17:41] this could be following the money this could be trying to work with front line practitioners trying to

[00:17:48] design an identify harm and be fairly people at race against someone but it could be

[00:17:57] working with and trying to prevent it in the first place and what needs to happen we need to look at

[00:18:03] kind of lots of wider quantities in which exploitation happens for example

[00:18:09] I don't know in the UK I think a good few years ago to you see did a

[00:18:18] research you look in it how many labing factors in the UK and I think they can't did

[00:18:24] around 19 which meant for the whole UK kind of trying to check in employees for the compliance with

[00:18:31] whether they follow labor rights legislation which means a thing they

[00:18:37] accounted that a British employer can expect an inspection every 500 years

[00:18:44] so that means that the labor market is not really one it is very later but their huge gaps in

[00:18:54] in terms of where abuse and exploitation can happen we would have to look at how easy it is

[00:19:01] to raise issues if you have problems for British people that's probably easier for people who

[00:19:10] come here for example to fill up gaps in agriculture or care work which we they can literally

[00:19:19] advise people to fill up skills that they come on be as a tie to their employers so

[00:19:27] if they complain the employer can say well I'm going to revoke your beasers so

[00:19:35] it's very difficult for them to raise problems so all these problems have to be looked at

[00:19:40] in order to kind of prevent setting that people are up for for exploitation

[00:19:45] serious control issues are the day to day kind of tools that bad employers and those

[00:19:57] that employees leave was actually used they've got to have things that they hold over people and

[00:20:03] as you say visas and kind of permissions are one of them pay of course is another housing is another

[00:20:10] and allowing people even any kind of opportunity to mix on the local community sometimes is

[00:20:18] is pruned on so much so that we never really get a chance to get an idea of the scope of this thing

[00:20:26] that's right I mean we we have to look at how people arrive in the

[00:20:35] places where they're not going to be in the first place exploitation rarely or never would even

[00:20:40] rest at word happens without a context or never happens in a vacuum people look for opportunities

[00:20:52] to provide the further families if they if they from other countries day they might look for

[00:21:05] and they might have to being depth that's a very common way of controlling people

[00:21:15] they might not speak to language they might not know the rights they might not

[00:21:22] the pastime might be taken away or they might not have a permit to work legally in the country which

[00:21:28] further kind of leave it's the right enough to do their rights. The training what you agree

[00:21:36] that the training needed for all frontline services where any of these people might just come in

[00:21:42] contact with such as whether it's medical medics, whether it's social workers, whether it's shops,

[00:21:50] whether it's banks, whether there is any other organizations the vets or anybody you will

[00:21:57] have where people would come in touch with that they should be aware of situations and at least

[00:22:02] trained up to a certain point within the rodent safeguarding training that happens anyway

[00:22:07] slavery doesn't tend to figure very highly and I think this is a very great gap

[00:22:15] in what we do to protect people. Absolutely that's the that's a crucial part of their response

[00:22:22] to tell me this then you know I mean you've got a very good website and obviously all the

[00:22:30] details will be on the front page of this podcast and links and everything to you will be there

[00:22:35] for people to to to to look at and consult with but how would you would you encourage who would

[00:22:41] you encourage to get in touch with you to just at least learn what you do and possibly interact

[00:22:46] if they feel that that's important for to help them what kind of organizations would you be

[00:22:53] looking to to link with you to look that you're not working with already or that you haven't

[00:22:59] how got enough people for example local authorities I don't know tell me. I think local authorities

[00:23:05] is is is a very good example of organizations that could benefit from from looking at evidence and

[00:23:12] looking at our website. We obviously encourage everyone part of to look at our website and

[00:23:19] our social media part of my job. Pat's in least you make sure that the the challenge of academic

[00:23:27] research being very technical and and kind of mind in a jargon can be actually translated in

[00:23:36] something that's accessible to everyone and easy to understand the access so for example you

[00:23:44] could look at our social media which I really do try to make it as simple as an accessible as

[00:23:49] possible. Local authorities is one one good example that could benefit from looking at

[00:23:59] website and working with local police for example for us is but we can talk about lots of different

[00:24:09] professionals so mental health professionals doctors doctors teachers who can

[00:24:17] learn how to spot the size of any size of children and teenagers being

[00:24:23] doomed and recruited to to criminal guns so all these kind of front-line services

[00:24:31] social workers absolutely a huge huge area where they could help and buy by landing and

[00:24:39] get them that awareness of size and how to find out. And can you could pick signpost them to

[00:24:45] where they can get more training, get more learning is that something that you can do?

[00:24:51] We haven't really specifically done that a lot of local partnerships within their areas I'm

[00:25:00] sure they if you if you go local organizations there are local organizations and local partnerships

[00:25:06] I would have to look up big we done it was quite a few years ago one if not the first

[00:25:15] first piece of research that we published full stop was on kind of creating training for

[00:25:22] for local partnerships I could provide a link to that in there in the well any links yes

[00:25:31] yeah any links there is a there is a red image a red image kind of templates for how to run

[00:25:39] training for for local partnerships and normally normally these could include police

[00:25:45] and social workers and teachers and doctors they mentioned all the local furriys and front-line

[00:25:53] well partner local partnership boards are obviously vital with what you've been saying but let me

[00:25:58] also remind you and and suggest to anybody listening that people forget that faith-based safeguarding

[00:26:07] exists all over the country whether it's church of England whether it's the Catholic church

[00:26:14] whether it's all the other faiths they all have now partnership they all have safe-guarding boards

[00:26:21] and are far more aware alert and professional in terms of supporting their own

[00:26:32] so I think them too would be there's a she millions of eyes and ears there that can be helpful

[00:26:42] absolutely churches tend to be very well embedded in local local communities people know

[00:26:48] we chatter and progressing in that regard in terms of safe-guarding is very welcome and one of the

[00:26:57] places where it would be great if you've bought a slager and exploitation and signs and responses

[00:27:04] added to those places I think there are chapter bigland has done quite a

[00:27:13] it has done some but I don't think anybody which is that is perhaps possibly enough considering

[00:27:19] the skill of the problem I don't think anyone has done in our full stop so I think we all have

[00:27:25] big challenge on our hand how to push that work to address one in slavery and understand it

[00:27:32] better and not only by us in in a kind of high hybrid powers of or for academic research on it

[00:27:38] but also for policy makers for front-leg professional and for for the public who could

[00:27:47] also spot someone if they people use car washes people use the do their nails people have

[00:27:57] gardens passed up or drive the right way so they have houses being built

[00:28:05] British probably is not immune from the issue of modern slavery so the more they are aware they can

[00:28:12] always grab a phone and call them on a slavery hell plan or google models favour a hell plan

[00:28:18] and go with individual cases that help blind on the text as well shall we? I think that's a very

[00:28:27] good idea because it's good to know it's just easy to google and we'll pop up you can even

[00:28:34] make a referral of a case online I believe so it's good it's good that people

[00:28:44] aware of these things and can react with confidence that they don't get anyone in child for

[00:28:49] example because that's what we're in the slavery because it is key I really understand and

[00:28:54] you're your director of communications for peck but what other others that work with peck

[00:29:02] I mean a presumed there's quite a varied skill base in terms of in terms of the people that

[00:29:11] work for peck at the moment but yeah absolutely I think well those people's

[00:29:19] killed and pre such but most of the research that we've done we've actually funded external teams

[00:29:25] so we've worked with our arts of universities and organisations too and we funded them in the

[00:29:34] second phase of our funding or kind of continuation phase when it was removed across the

[00:29:40] earth so it's going to change a little bit we're going to have a little bit more kind of in-house

[00:29:45] research capacity from partners of our consultants so that's we're actually consortium of several

[00:29:53] organisations including University of Liverpool University of Hall and Bonavaro Institute for

[00:30:02] Human Rights at the University of Oxford so we'll have researchers working for us there

[00:30:07] obviously we have people's killed and very plugged in into policy who build relationships with

[00:30:14] which the Presabins working across departments in the government and do you have our career at

[00:30:23] that conversation? Do you have a good relationship with I mean I know it's just changed the

[00:30:28] government but generally speaking with with the central political base in this country do you

[00:30:34] have a good relationship there? We'd try to stay away from the politics we independent and

[00:30:41] partial so we're never going to get involved into politics but we build relationships with

[00:30:49] with a policy maker and that means seven and whoever is willing to listen or with parliamentary

[00:30:56] as well to inform their thinking with our evidence but that's always always always always the

[00:31:07] our conversation we are impartial and we are basing evidence. I understand the non-political

[00:31:13] side but I'm just saying because whoever is in power they are the administration and they are the ones

[00:31:18] that you can influence. Okay look there's a money a minute or two possibly left and I just want to

[00:31:26] make sure that you get a chance to maybe give out your message or where you see peck going over

[00:31:32] the next year or so and what message you might give to people who are listening and maybe not

[00:31:38] knowing enough a lot about what you do you know is like what kind of help would you require? What

[00:31:46] kind of help can you give a what kind of future do you see over the next year or so for peck?

[00:31:53] I think the biggest challenge for us it continues to be the same we're going to produce

[00:32:01] the evidence. I think that the biggest challenge is to continue to find ways of explaining

[00:32:07] this issue and kind of make the issue of what a slavery understandable across the board.

[00:32:14] Understandable with all its factors and complications and complexity. I think that's the biggest

[00:32:20] challenge in terms of what a slavery such trying to make it accessible and make it clean water

[00:32:30] actually means and what are the solutions to just to learn it to spell it out. So we are clearer

[00:32:37] what solutions there are to address decision. Okay well look Yakuba I mean I really do appreciate

[00:32:44] you taking time to talk to me today I know you've taken time especially from your own time

[00:32:50] but over in Poland to do this but effectively I think what you've told is is enough a lot of good

[00:32:57] food for thought and I want to make sure and people realize that all the things you mentioned

[00:33:02] about your website will be on the front page of this podcast when it goes out and effectively

[00:33:10] contact how to contact you and how to read and look what you've done before and what organizations

[00:33:17] that might not already be linking with you how they can do so and so thank you very much indeed for

[00:33:23] your time. Thank you very much it was absolute pleasure if to talk to you and if someone wants to

[00:33:32] have a look it's modern slavery pack that's modernslaverypcc.org and you can take it from there.

[00:33:39] Michelle and maybe we can come back in a year or so and I can say how's it been?

[00:33:45] That would be my pleasure. Okay thank you very much indeed. Thank you so much.