Modern slavery and human trafficking are rapidly evolving and increasingly complex crimes. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner (IASC) and UK Government Office for Science (GO) commissioned Decision Analysis Services (DAS) to conduct an independent strategic foresight initiative to better understand emerging risks and plausible future scenarios, and to identify implications and potential mitigations in order to drive more informed, impactful decision-making now and in the future.
DAS delivered a foresight study on the critical threats associated with modern slavery and human trafficking over the next 10 years to 2036. We brought together diverse perspectives from over fifty organisations across the modern slavery and human trafficking system, including organisations representing those with lived experience, to ensure perspectives from every angle were heard. The analysis identified emerging factors and forms of exploitation and assessed how they may evolve over the next decade, their implications and potential mitigations.
We conducted a detailed threat identification exercise, identifying twenty-one factors that would contribute to the future prevalence and form of modern slavery and human trafficking. These threats were used as the basis for a scenario generation exercise. Five scenarios, each a plausible but extreme future state, were developed to be used as a basis to explore and stress-test future policy and develop more resilient strategies. This foresight was then used to determine more than a hundred potential ways to disrupt and reduce modern slavery and human trafficking over the next ten years.
The work was completed using our Intelligent Futures toolset, a bespoke service that combines multiple highly innovative techniques to deliver on-going strategic intelligence and foresight. Notably our AI-enabled horizon scanning tool, PreVueAI, supported the development of a robust evidence base by providing additional depth and breadth of research on emerging threats and scenarios. It also provided a baseline for maintaining horizon scanning insights of existing, new and emerging threats and how they are changing over time.
IASC used the outputs of our analysis to develop a five-point action plan for the Government. The plan sets out coordinated actions to reduce vulnerability, strengthen safeguarding, disrupt adaptive exploitation, shift accountability onto enabling systems, and build long-term resilience.
Full report here: report-anticipating-exploitation_a-futures-analysis_final.pdf
