Tackling modern slavery in Britain is a "personal priority", the home secretary has said following the discovery of three women allegedly held as slaves for at least 30 years.

Theresa May said details were still emerging in the case in Lambeth, south London, but it was clear that many other victims were "hidden in plain sight" across the country.

Scotland Yard revealed on Saturday that two of the three women rescued had lived in a "collective" with the man arrested after meeting through a "shared political ideology".

A man and women, both 67, have been released on bail after being arrested on Thursday in connection with the investigation into slavery and domestic servitude.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, May said the "one positive" of the case was that more people were aware of the issue of slavery, which still has a "shocking presence in modern Britain".

"It is all around us, hidden in plain sight," she said. "It is walking our streets, supplying shops and supermarkets, working in fields, factories or nail bars, trapped in brothels or cowering behind the curtains in an ordinary street: slavery.

"Something most of us thought consigned to history books, belonging to a different century, is a shameful and shocking presence in modern Britain."

May said the facts behind the Lambeth case were still not known and the investigation "must be allowed to take its course".

"Whatever the outcome, the one positive is that it has raised awareness of the issue of slavery in the public and media mind," she wrote.

May said the new modern slavery bill, which will increase the maximum sentence for trafficking offences to life imprisonment and create the role of anti-slavery commissioner, would be the first of its kind in Europe.

"Tackling this abhorrent crime is a personal priority for me," she added.

bron: http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...lavery-priority
krant: the guardian

mening: Ik vind het zeer positief dat May meer aandacht richt op het gebruik van slavernij. Ze maakt de maatschappij meer gewaar met hoeveel slavernij we te maken hebben. Ook de nieuwe wetgeving (levenslang geven) is zeker een must. Zo wordt er meer druk gezet op diegenen die zich aan slavernij wagen. Hopelijk worden door de grotere focus snel meer gevallen opgepakt. Zodat elke mens kan genieten van zijn mensenrechten!