Phones, clothes and timber: How the UK is supporting global slavery as 50 million remain trapped
When Nasreen was just a young child, she saw her 12 -year-old sister forced into marriage, and her mother warned her she would be next.
At the age of around nine, with the help of a male cousin, she fled her small rural Nepalese village – she can’t say exactly how old she was because her birth was never recorded.
She arrived in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal with nothing – not even a last name – and spent 15 hours a day toiling in a sweatshop, creating garments that would later be flown to department stores in wealthy countries.
At night, she would fall asleep on the piles of clothes and dream about where they would end up.
“I was looking for freedom and a better life and I ended up as forced child labour, in one of these tiny rooms in a textile factory with six others – it was loosely regulated, no windows and the doors locked,” she told Sky News.
Nasreen eventually escaped the cycle of slavery with the help of a mentor, and adopted the surname Sheikh – which in Arabic translates as ‘Chief of the Tribe’. She now works as the co-director of the Empowerment Collective, A US-based group that helps eradicate modern-day slavery by giving marginalised women the support and skills they need to ensure their self-sufficiency and dignity.
But the latest Global Slavery Index from International human rights organisation Walk Free found more than 50 million people around the world live in modern slavery, exacerbated by warfare, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
And the problem is only getting worse – some 10 million more people are enslaved compared to five years ago.
While the UK was found to have taken the most action to combat modern slavery (followed by the Netherlands and Portugal) it remains complicit. Nearly two-thirds of all forced labour cases are connected to global supply chains.
The UK accounted for £21bn in at-risk imported products, including electronics, fish, garments, textiles and timber.
People living in higher-income countries “need to start asking questions about the clothes you are wearing, the phone you have in your pocket or the seaweed you ate last night,” Nasreen said.
“Those things contain slavery.”
How the UK imports slave-made goods
Nasreen said that while the number of enslaved people in parts of the Western world is low – statistics suggest 122,000 living in modern slavery in the UK – “it does not mean that slavery is not there” – but it is just being imported.
“Forced labour is found in low-income countries, but it is deeply connected to demand from higher income countries,” she said.
“These people are hidden, invisible. They don’t have a voice. They are so traumatised they can’t speak for themselves.”
Worldwide, over half of those in modern slavery, like Nasreen, are female. A quarter are children.
Women and girls are disproportionately at risk of forced marriage, accounting for 68% of all people forced to marry.
However, estimates remain conservative – UNICEF suggests that worldwide there are 650 million women and girls who were married before the age of 18.
Nasreen said her sister was “terrified” and crying when she was forced into marriage.
Mahendra was a former migrant worker in Saudi Arabia – and now campaigns for better rights for workers
“But everyone said, that’s how it goes, when they get married they cry,” she said.
“I asked my mother why are you forcing my sister and she said that it’s not that I’m doing it – this is how our culture is.
“This is how our society is – this is what happened to me, this is what happened to your sister, next it will happen to you.”
“Child labour and modern-day slavery are so normalised in our part of the world,” she added. “A lot of victims don’t see it as an issue because the trauma is normalised too.”
Migrant workers
The report from Walk Free found migrant workers are more than three times more likely to be in forced labour than non-migrant workers.
Mahendra Pandey, a former migrant worker in Saudi Arabia, said people like him “enter the country in good faith”.
He continued: “But once were are there, and when we can’t go back to our own country, we face discrimination, abuses and exploitations.”
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The global community is now even further from achieving the goals it agreed to make a priority and no government is on track to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 of ending modern slavery, forced labour, and human trafficking by 2030.
“Modern slavery permeates every aspect of our society. It is woven through our clothes, lights up our electronics, and seasons our food. At its core, modern slavery is a manifestation of extreme inequality,” said Founding Director of Walk Free, Grace Forrest.
“It is a mirror held to power, reflecting who in any given society has it and who does not. Nowhere is this paradox more present than in our global economy through transnational supply chains.”
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Russia – as the US president called on Moscow to “get moving” with ending the war in Ukraine.
Mr Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, visited Mr Putin in St Petersburg after earlier meeting the Russian leader’s international co-operation envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
Mr Putin was shown on state TV greeting Mr Witkoff at the city’s presidential library at the start of the latest discussions about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine.
Before Friday’s meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down expectations of a breakthrough and told state media the visit would not be “momentous”.
Follow the latest updates on the war in Ukraine
However, Sky News Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett said he believes the meeting – Mr Witkoff’s third with Mr Putin this year – is significant as a sign of the Trump administration’s “increasing frustration at the lack of progress on peace talks”.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump issued his latest social media statement on trying to end the war, writing on Truth Social: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!”
Dialogue between the US and Russia, aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war, has recently appeared to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause.
Mr Trump, pictured at a cabinet meeting at the White House earlier this week, has called for Russia to ‘get moving’. Pic: AP
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Secondary sanctions could be imposed on countries that buy Russian oil, Mr Trump has said, if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a deal.
Mr Putin has said he is ready in principle to agree a full ceasefire, but argues crucial conditions have yet to be agreed – and that what he calls the root causes of the war have yet to be addressed.
The Russian president wants to dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and has demanded Kyiv recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and other partly occupied areas, and pull its forces out, as well as a pledge for Ukraine to never join NATO and for the size of its army to be limited.
Zelenskyy renews support calls after attack on home city
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Children killed in strike on Zelenskyy’s home town
Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his appeals for more Patriot air defence systems after the deaths of 20 people, including nine children, who were killed when a Russian missile hit apartment buildings and a playground in his home city of Kryvyi Rih last week.
Speaking online at a meeting of the so-called Ramstein group of about 50 nations that provide military support to Ukraine, named after a previous meeting at America’s Ramstein air base in Germany in 2022, Mr Zelenskyy said recent Russian attacks showed Moscow was not ready to accept and implement any realistic and effective peace proposals.
Mr Zelenskyy also made his evening address to the nation, saying: “Ukraine is not just asking – we are ready to buy appropriate additional systems.”
The UK’s defence secretary, John Healy, has said this is “the critical year” for Ukraine – and has confirmed £450m in funding for a military support package.
A family of five Spanish tourists, including three children, have been killed in a helicopter crash in New York City.
A New York City Hall spokesman identified two of those killed as Agustin Escobar, a Siemens executive, and Merce Camprubi Montal – believed to be his wife, NBC News reported.
The pilot was also killed as the aircraft crashed into the Hudson River at around 3.17pm on Thursday.
New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said divers had recovered all those on board from the helicopter, which was upside down in the water.
“Four victims were pronounced dead on scene and two more were removed to local area hospitals, where sadly both succumbed to their injuries,” she said.
The helicopter was submerged upside down in the Hudson. Pic: Reuters
A crane lifted out the wreckage on Thursday evening. Pic: AP
The Spanish president Pedro Sanchez called the news “devastating”.
“An unimaginable tragedy. I share the grief of the victims’ loved ones at this heartbreaking time,” he wrote on X.
Rotor blade ‘flew off’
The aircraft was on a tourist flight of Manhattan, run by the New York Helicopters company.
Witnesses described seeing the main rotor blade flying off moments before it dropped out the sky.
Agustin Escobar and Merce Camprubi Montal.
Pic: Facebook
Lesly Camacho, a worker at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, said she saw the helicopter spinning uncontrollably before it slammed into the water.
“There was a bunch of smoke coming out. It was spinning pretty fast, and it landed in the water really hard,” she said.
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Witness saw ‘parts flying off’ helicopter
Another witness said “the chopper blade flew off”.
“I don’t know what happened to the tail, but it just straight up dropped,” Avi Rakesh told Sky’s US partner, NBC News.
Video on social media showed parts of the Bell 206 helicopter tumbling through the air and landing in the river.
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New York mayor confirms six dead
The crash happened near Pier 40. Pic: AP
New York Mayor Eric Adams confirmed the six deaths and said authorities believed the tourists were from Spain.
He said the flight had taken off from a downtown heliport at around 3pm.
Pic: Cover Images/AP
The crash happened close to Pier 40 and the Holland tunnel, which links lower Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood with Jersey City to its west.
Tracking service Flight Radar 24 published what it said was the helicopter’s route, with the aircraft appearing to be in the sky for 15 minutes before the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have started an investigation.
Agustin Escobar.
Pic: Europa Press/AP
Thursday’s incident comes less than three month after 67 people died when an army helicopter and American Airlines jet collided over the Potomac River in Washington DC.
A former ballerina who spent more than a year in a Russian jail for donating £40 to a charity supporting Ukraine has returned home to the US after being freed in a prisoner exchange.
Ksenia Karelina landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 11pm, local time, on Thursday.
A smiling Ms Karelina was greeted on the runway by her fiance, the professional boxer Chris van Heerden, and given flowers by Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East.
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Ksenia Karelina arrives at Joint Base Andrews. Pic: AP
Van Heerden said in a statement he was “overjoyed to hear that the love of my life, Ksenia Karelina, is on her way home from wrongful detention in Russia.
“She has endured a nightmare for 15 months and I cannot wait to hold her. Our dog, Boots, is also eagerly awaiting her return.”
He thanked Mr Trump and his envoys, as well as prominent public figures who had championed her case, including Dana White, a friend of Mr Trump and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Ms Karelina, 34, a US-Russian citizen also identified as Ksenia Khavana, was accused of treason when she was arrested in Yekaterinburg, in southwestern Russia, while visiting family in February last year.
Investigators searched her mobile phone and found she made a $51.80 (£40) donation to Razom, a charity that provides aid to Ukraine, on the first day of Russia’s invasion in 2022.
She admitted the charge at a closed trial in the city in August last year and was later jailed for 12 years, to be served in a penal colony.
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr Trump, who wants to normalise relations with Moscow, said the Kremlin “released the young ballerina and she is now out, and that was good. So we appreciate that”.
Ksenia Karelina is hugged by her boyfriend, Chris van Heerden. Pic: Reuters
He said the release followed conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian security services accused her of “proactively” collecting money for a Ukrainian organisation that was supplying gear to Kyiv’s forces.
The First Department, a Russian rights group, said the charges stemmed from a $51.80 donation to a US charity aiding Ukraine.
Washington, which had called her case “absolutely ludicrous”, released Arthur Petrov, who it was holding on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia, in the prisoner swap in Abu Dhabi.
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Karelina was among a growing number of Americans arrested in Russia in recent years as tensions between Moscow and Washington spiked over the war in Ukraine.
Her release is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner exchanges Russia and the US carried out in the last three years – and the second since Mr Trump took office.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said members of the Trump administration “continue to work around the clock to ensure Americans detained abroad are returned home to their families”.
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