GRETA’s report on Human Trafficking in the UK welcomes stronger reforms, but warns that victim referrals surged from 12,687 in 2021 to 17,390 in 2025, exposing persistent enforcement gaps

Labour exploitation remained the most common form of trafficking, while child exploitation was increasingly linked to county-line drug networks. GRETA urges the UK to speed up victim identification processes, strengthen financial investigations and inter-agency coordination, improve access to legal aid and compensation, and enhance protections for vulnerable groups such as children, migrants, asylum seekers, and homeless individuals to fully align with the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention…