UK rolling back efforts to tackle modern slavery, charity says

Campaigners accused the Home Office of deliberately failing to appoint a new anti-slavery commissioner. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The UK has been accused of “rolling back” moves to tackle modern slavery before a UN review of its human rights record on Thursday.

Anti-Slavery International said that at the time of the last universal periodic review (UPR) in 2017, the UK had recently passed the Modern Slavery Act and was seen by some as an exemplar, but five years later, with the next review imminent, it has regressed.