Modern slavery in the UK

November 22, 2013 - Three women have been "rescued" from a south London house as police investigate claims they were held as slaves for about 30 years. The charity Anti-Slavery International says that as many as 5,000 people could be held in slavery or servitude in the UK. There were more than 1,200 reports of slavery in 2012.

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Context: In the United States in May, three women who had been missing for about a decade were found in a home in Cleveland. Ariel Castro, a former school-bus driver, was given a life sentence for holding the three women captive and repeatedly raping them. In September, Castro committed suicide in prison.

In two infamous cases in Austria, Natascha Kampusch was found in 2006 after being held captive by Wolfgang Priklopil for eight years. In 2009, Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life after keeping his daughter Elisabeth captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her.

The first Global Slavery Index, published in October, revealed there were nearly 30 million people living as slaves in 162 countries and that Britain ranked 160th on the list.