NEWS- GRETA publishes its fourth report on the United Kingdom for Human Trafficking
The Council of Europe’s group of experts on trafficking in human beings, GRETA, has welcomed a series of steps taken by the UK authorities in recent years to tackle human trafficking.
At the same time, GRETA has urged the UK to adopt a number of further measures to bring the country’s laws, policies and practices fully into line with the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention.
In its latest UK evaluation report, published today, GRETA notes that the number of possible victims of trafficking referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) rose sharply from 12,687 in 2021 to 17,390 in the period from January to September 2025.
The most common nationality of people referred to the NRM during the reporting period (2021 to 2025) was British. Labour exploitation remained the predominant form of trafficking, accounting for 29% of referrals between 2021 and 2024. For child victims, the main form of exploitation between 2021 and 2025 was criminal exploitation – notably relating to so-called “county-line” drug networks.
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