COMPANIES in Worcestershire are being urged to look for signs of human trafficking when they take on migrant labour.

It is more than seven years since recruitment and training experts eResponse Group invested in new technology to rigorously screen the passports of every person who comes to work through the agency, but to underline its stance on the national problem, staff have also been given refresher training by the charity Hope for Justice to help spot signs of human trafficking.

At the event held at eResponse’s Redditch office, Gary Booth from the charity explained how many trafficked people may have no passport or identity documents, no access to a bank account and are often accompanied by the trafficker who does all the talking for them. Staff will now put the updated training into practice with every applicant for work or training.

Operations director of eResponse, Joe Alekna, said: “For many people it’s hard to believe that in Great Britain in 2016 there still exists a form of the slave trade. Anyone who might be trying to exploit a worker has no business with eResponse. We are determined to make sure that if anyone comes to us for employment and they are being trafficked, we will rapidly spot the signs and we will take action. The session with Gary was great. Although we have robust systems in place it helped to reiterate to us all the importance of spotting potentially vulnerable people and has made our stance on human trafficking even stronger.”

Gary Booth from Hope for Justice added: “eResponse Group have systems in place to identify and prevent slavery entering local businesses. Responsible employers won’t want to be funding this cruel and exploitative, illegal industry and I’m pleased to see a recruitment provider taking such a proactive step to do its bit to stamp out this crime.”

In 2014 the UK National Referral Mechanism received 2,114 referrals of potential victims of trafficking in England, a 36 per cent rise on the year before. Latest figures show that in the first three months of 2015 at least 161 people were found to have been trafficked in the UK, out of 731 referrals to the authorities. Convicted traffickers can be sentenced to life in prison.