The discursive construction of Albanian migrants and the erosion of modern slavery protection

Guest post by Alice Griggs. Alice Griggs is a legal advisor at South Yorkshire Refugee Law and Justice, representing destitute asylum seekers in their asylum and immigration cases. In 2024, they completed an MA in Social Research at the University of Sheffield, focusing on the experiences of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and trafficking survivors. 

Perhaps no other nationality came to represent the so-called ‘small boats crisis’ as much as Albanian migrants, following an unprecedented increase of arrivals, from 815 in 2021, to 12,638 in 2022. Of these arrivals, 77% were men and 85% claimed asylum. The then-Conservative government responded to this ‘crisis’ in general terms in their 2021 policy statement the ‘New Plan for Immigration’, which criticised ‘rising abuse’ of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM - the body in the Home Office responsible for identifying Victims of Trafficking or ‘VoTs’) by migrants arriving via small boat; and to the arrival of Albanians specifically with the implementation of the ‘UK-Albania Joint Communique’, which fast-tracked the removal of Albanians entering the UK via irregular means.  

Albanian migrants, who experience high rates of trafficking, composing 27% of potential victims referred into the NRM in 2022, were also disproportionately impacted by concurrent legislative changes that eroded modern slavery protections. This includes the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA22), which elevated the evidence threshold for being recognised as a VoT and removed key safeguards established in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA15). This increased hostility towards VoTs generally, and Albanians specifically, created an environment where hundreds of Albanian children could go missing from Home Office accommodation, possibly trafficked, without significant scandal. 

My study examines whether parliamentary discourse constructed Albanian migrants as criminals to justify the adoption of new legislation. To this end, I carried out a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of five Hansard transcripts pertaining to the phenomenon, alongside quantitative analysis of publicly available NRM data, and data from both the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the NRM obtained via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. 

Two opposing discourses 

Using van Djik’s framework for analysing racism in Western parliamentary discourse, two contradicting discursive narratives soon emerged. The dominant narrative, present across all transcripts, invoked ‘negative other representation’ which constructed Albanian migrants as male criminals pretending to be VoTs to abuse the asylum system. This framing was usually paired with the suggestion that Albania was a universally safe country where no-one faces persecution. Discursive strategies used included sensationalist language and over-emphasising the scale of Albanian migration. For example, Danny Kruger, Conservative MP for Devizes claimed that ‘40,000’ Albanians entered the UK in 2022, an inflation of over three times. 

The alternative discourse, which only emerged in one single transcript, portrayed persecution in Albania as highly complex, affecting different demographic groups, particularly women and children fleeing domestic violence; men fleeing blood feuds; trafficking survivors; LGBTQIA people; and ethnic minorities. Unlike the dominant discourse, the alternative relied upon a wide range of evidence to support its claims, including primary research with the Shpresa Programme, a London-based charity supporting Albanian migrants. It also closely reflects the findings of Malaj’s dissertation into the motivations of Albanian asylum seekers in the UK. 

NRM data and the difficult relationship between criminality and human trafficking 

While Albanian migrants are over-represented in the UK prison system, these figures alone do not illustrate the highly complex and under researched relationship between criminality and human trafficking. Criminal organisations involved in the trafficking of drugs and other illicit products may utilise their networks and infrastructure to traffic people; and modern slavery is present in all stages of the drug trade. The assumption that underpins the dominant narrative -  that someone is not a genuine victim of trafficking or modern slavery merely because they have been involved in criminality - risks excluding highly vulnerable individuals from the protections they need to safely exit exploitation.  

Indeed, the NRM data shows that, the majority of those Albanian applicants who had been conclusively assessed between 2018 and 2024 were found to be genuine VoTs, and most were male, many of them boys. Similarly, data obtained via FOI from the MoJ showed that 75.4% of incarcerated Albanians were convicted of drug related offences, an industry known for its use of modern slavery. Data obtained via FOI from the NRM showed that 64% of incarcerated Albanians referred into the NRM were deemed ‘reasonably likely’ to have been trafficked. Taken together, this data undermines the position of the New Plan for Immigration and demonstrates that there is no widespread abuse of the modern slavery system by Albanian migrants, especially given the NRM’s repeated failure to accurately identify VoTs. Furthermore, the data from the MoJ suggests there may be significant numbers of Albanian VoTs incarcerated in the UK, likely unable to access support for the impact of exploitation. 

The consequences of the dominant discourse 

The ‘New Plan for Immigration’ and the subsequent othering of Albanian migrants represents a discursive shift in the way VoTs are treated in the UK. From a legislative perspective, this shift has manifested in the 2022 Nationality and Borders Act. In particular, under Section 63, VoTs sentenced to over 12 months imprisonment are excluded from modern slavery protections, including possibly being barred from obtaining leave to remain in the UK, even on a temporary basis. While not directly contradictory, this is clearly incompatible with Section 45 of the MSA15, which provides a limited legal defence for VoTs accused of crimes they were forced into during exploitation, reflecting the lack of control trafficked people have over their criminality. Due to a lack of data regarding the application and outcomes of the Section 45 defence, it is difficult to evaluate the real impact that this mismatch may have on criminalised VoTs. However, the high percentage of incarcerated Albanians who may be VoTs could suggest an underapplication of the defence. 

Outside of the prison system, this discursive and legislatory shift from the relatively empathetic portrayal of VoTs in communications around the MSA15, to the climate of suspicion and disbelief that has followed the New Plan for Immigration, has had a significant impact on Albanian migrants in the UK. A recent study by the Public Law Project and Shpresa Programme found ‘systematically poor decision making’ by Home Office caseworkers assessing Albanian asylum claims. Perhaps most viscerally, this lack of regard for the welfare of VoTs, and particularly Albanian nationals is illustrated by the disappearance of approximately 200 Albanian children - mostly boys - from Home Office accommodation in 2022, likely trafficked. While inappropriate living conditions, such as the long-term use of insecure accommodation like hotels, are immediate factors that made these children vulnerable to exploitation, it would be naive to ignore the impact of the hostile discursive environment to Albanian boys in particular that allowed this tragedy to pass without mainstream condemnation. 

In this context, researchers such as Gadd have begun questioning the veracity of the claim that the UK is a ‘world leader in the fight against modern slavery’, pointing to the political inconvenience that our dedication to the hostile environment creates the conditions for exploitation to thrive in the global south. Unfortunately, this seems likely to continue under the present Labour government, whose own discursive strategies - such as Starmer’s infamous ‘Island of Strangers’ speech - continue to rely on fascistic imagery to champion ever increasing hostility to migrants.

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