Through a movement of people like at St Mary’s we are able to do amazing things. Your prayers and finances this last year have helped change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
It is hard to summarise what happens to person when they have been used as a slave. It is hard to fathom how someone who has been exploited can ever recover from their trauma and rebuild a life in freedom. But this is what you enable us to do with your prayers and finances every day at Hope for Justice.
Earlier this month we received a letter from the Criminal Prosecution Service to advise us that a man who was rescued from slavery in a bed factory in the West Midlands as long ago as 2015 has just been awarded compensation. Someone who had been held against their will, forced to live and work in atrocious conditions. Stripped of their dignity. It’s not a life-changing amount of money but this is an important step towards their ongoing recovery and our teams have worked tirelessly to get him some kind of justice for his exploitation.
In our US programme we have used our e-learning to reach vulnerable people serving short-term prison sentences to bring awareness of the signs of human trafficking. In 6 months over 23,000 incarcerated have taken our courses and some have gone on to seek further support and rehabilitation through identifying their own situations of exploitation. In our Northern Ireland programme we continue to train officers in the prison service to help spot the signs of modern slavery amongst prisoners and the Department of Justice has highlighted Hope for Justice’s training in it’s 3 year Modern Slavery Human Trafficking report. We are encouraged that our approach, expertise and evidence is impacting society in this way.
Closer to home, in Preston, members from one of our Abolition Groups helped identify a victim of modern slavery who was sleeping in an industrial wheelie bin outside a row of shops.
Two members of the Preston Abolition Group were walking in the Preston area when they discovered a young man in an industrial wheelie bin outside a row of shops.
He had applied for what he thought was a legitimate job in Bradford and then travelled to the UK from his home country. But on arrival, his passport and documents were taken from him and he was forced to work in a factory for little or no pay.
Fiona and her husband contacted Crossgate Church in Preston, who in turn reported the situation to Hope for Justice. We arranged emergency documents for the survivor to return home and a member of staff from Hope for Justice accompanied him on the flight to ensure he remained safe and was not re-exploited.
Fiona said “As a Christian, I felt God was going before us. He was saying, ‘Here is a real-life scenario for you to get engaged in’. It was those powerful first-hand experiences that gave us wind in our sails to continue.”
We were thrilled to be able to bring our UK team together at St Mary’s for the first time since 2022 to connect and re-energise. We spent the day meeting new colleagues and re-engaging with old. The conference space at St Mary’s enabled a great day of collaboration and team-building which is so necessary to make time for when everyone is so busy with mission-work.
Thank you to everyone at St Mary’s for your continued support and interest in our work.
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