The treatment of some victims of modern slavery by UK authorities is "morally unacceptable", the country's first anti-slavery commissioner has said.
Kevin Hyland said some victims were not given proper support by authorities. Setting out his first plan of action since the role was created last year, he said he wanted more victims to be identified and more prosecutions of traffickers and slave masters.
He said he planned to do this by giving police special training on slavery. Mr Hyland said he wanted to make sure officers knew how to handle victims of sexual exploitation and forced labour, as well as perpetrators.
'Hidden handcuffs'
Last year analysis for the Home Office suggested there could be between 10,000 and 13,000 slavery victims in the UK with the majority coming from Albania, Nigeria and Vietnam. However there was also a significant rise in the number of British people being referred to the authorities.
Mr Hyland told said they were being held in "hidden handcuffs" unable to escape from their slave masters. "They are groomed in a way. They are told their families will be hurt, their documents are taken from them and they are too scared to come forward," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Mr Hyland also said many victims are "hidden in plain sight" working on construction sites, farms and nail bars.
"You can be driving along a country lane - on one side of the road people are legitimately employed and on the other side of the road people are in forced labour and slavery. But actually it's up to the authorities and the communities to look a little bit further," he said.
He said he intended to put more pressure on the authorities to record details of victims more accurately - something he said was not always done.
"My strategy is very much about victim care and support," he said. "We have lots of information but it isn't being responded to in a co-ordinated way.
By recording information in a better way, he said victims would be presented with more options for support, and the scale of the problem would be known more accurately.
