Roundup: Britain's PM declares new war on modern slavery with new task force to tackle traffickers

The first ever government task force on modern slavery is to be established in Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May announced Sunday.

The move comes on the first anniversary of a Modern Slavery law that May introduced when she was Home Secretary.

May also announced Sunday a 44 million U.S. dollar package from Britain's aid budget to create a five-year international modern slavery and focused on high-risk countries, from where victims are regularly trafficked into Britain.

"It is hard to comprehend that such sickening and inhuman crimes are lurking in the shadows of our country. But the most recent estimates suggest that there are between 10,000 and 13,000 victims in the UK alone and over 45 million across the world," said May.

"From nail bars and car washes to sheds and rundown caravans, people are enduring experiences that are simply horrifying in their inhumanity," she added.

May spoke of one young modern female slave she had met in London, saying: "She had come to England as a student but was forced into prostitution, imprisoned in a house in south London and regularly abused, including being threatened at gunpoint. When she finally escaped to north London, she was picked up by another gang that systematically exploited her and raped many others in a squalid high-street brothel."

She described how vulnerable people travelled long distances believing they were heading for legitimate jobs to find they have been duped, forced into hard labour, and then locked up and abused.

"Innocent individuals are being tricked into prostitution, often by people they thought they could trust. Children are being made to pick-pocket on the streets and steal from cash machines. Others, like a seven-year-old who was found and rescued in London, are held as domestic slaves, while some children are raped, beaten and passed from abuser to abuser for profit," said May.

She said she and her successor as Home Secretary Amber Rudd will hold regular meetings at 10 Downing Street with every relevant government department "to get a real grip of this issue right across Whitehall and to co-ordinate and drive further progress in the battle against this cruel exploitation".

May's Modern Slavery act was the first of its kind in Europe, creating tough new penalties to put slave masters in prison, with life sentences for the worst offenders.

"It has created a vital policing tool to stop anyone convicted of trafficking from travelling to a country where they are known to have exploited vulnerable people in the past," said May.

It has also delivered enhanced protection and support for victims of slavery and a world-leading transparency requirement on businesses to show modern slavery is not taking place in their companies or their supply chains.

These crimes must be stopped and the victims of modern slavery must go free.

"Just because we have some legislation does not mean the problem is solved. So as Prime Minister, I am setting up the first ever government task force on modern slavery," said May.

She commissioned an independent review from slavery-law expert Caroline Haughey, which found that in the first year of the new law there have been 289 modern slavery offences prosecuted and a 40 percent rise in the number of slavery victims identified by the state.

May said Britain's new Anti-Slavery Commissioner Kevin Hyland, the only such commissioner in the world, is critical in Britain's fight to stop criminal gangs exploiting innocent men, women and children.

She said his work has helped uncover criminal gangs creating twinned towns of modern slavery between Britain and other nations. Endit