January of this year saw the launch of the Trafficking Compensation Action Group (TCAG), a network of practitioners who work in various ways to secure compensation for victims of trafficking and modern slavery. The aim is to pool and share knowledge and best practice in the sector, and build collaborative relationships in order to achieve better results for victims. The focus is on securing compensation through multi-disciplinary rather than specialist approaches.
The emphasis of TCAG is squarely on compensation for victims, rather than bringing wrongdoers to justice more broadly. Those who work with victims of trafficking know that achieving justice—for example, through the criminal courts—only goes so far. Victims of trafficking are vulnerable to further exploitation: escaping their predicament often leaves them without money, housing, or community ties, and with serious physical and psychological injuries. It is all too common to see them fall back into the hands of people who exploit those vulnerabilities.
Compensation can help break that
