'Trafficked to a cannabis farm over family's debt'

Nam was trafficked to the UK by lorry

A man from Vietnam says he is unsure he will ever recover from being smuggled into the UK in a lorry and forced to work on a cannabis farm to pay off his family's debts.

Nam, not his real name, is from Ha Tinh. He says he was beaten, forced to work 19 hours each day and had no chance of escape. But he is not alone.

Nearly a third of the 3,602 Vietnamese migrants who arrived in the UK by small boat last year were identified as potentially modern slaves, although this number may rise as more victims could be found.

The government says it is ramping up immigration enforcement to tackle the criminal gangs that extort people.

With a lack of reputable lenders to borrow money from, people in Vietnam often turn to loan sharks who charge high interest rates.

These loan sharks work with trafficking gangs, who will force people into working against their will if the debts go unpaid.

When Nam's father became ill with lung cancer, his family borrowed the equivalent of £186,564 from a loan shark.

Nam and his sister were both forced by gangs to go abroad to work to repay the debt.

He was taken to Russia with a fake passport and then transported through Europe.

In France, Nam says his traffickers forced him into a refrigerated lorry, threatening to kill him if he disobeyed.

When Nam was discovered in the cannabis farm by police, he had broken bones in his spine

Nam arrived in the UK through Dover and was forced to clean houses for no pay, before being sent to the cannabis factory.

He says he remembers often thinking: "I could die in there without anyone knowing."

Police eventually found Nam, but the experience has left him with physical and mental health problems.

"I don't know when I will fully recover," he said.

Van was not allowed to leave the cannabis farm and started to become ill and had lots of nose bleeds whilst being kept there

Van, whose identity we are protecting, is another victim of trafficking in the UK and was also forced to work on a cannabis farm.

He came to the UK legally as a student but when his visa was coming to an end, his family told him he could not go home to Vietnam because they had borrowed money from loan sharks and he needed to work for two years to repay the debt.

"They threatened to beat me and threatened that my family in Vietnam would not be able to live in peace," he said.

Van was later discovered by Border Force officials as the gang tried to smuggle him into Ireland.

He said that initially he was not believed to have been a trafficking victim and was told he would be deported back to Vietnam, which at first he thought was good news.

"Then I realised that we were still in debt, the gangsters would still come to find me in Vietnam and they would still make my life, and my family's life, miserable," he said.

"I didn't want to live at that point".

The Salvation Army says there is a risk that potential victims may be "misidentified, criminalised and denied access" to the support they need.

Van and Nam were eventually referred into the National Referral Mechanism - a process which finds support for people who are victims of modern slavery - and are now being supported by charities in the UK.

'Hidden in plain sight'

A spokesperson for the Home Office said it had an "unwavering commitment" to tackling modern slavery, and that it was concerned to hear about Van's experience.

Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle told BBC South East that the government must "put pressure on these organised gangs all along their supply chains right from the very beginning".

The government has also expanded its social media campaigns in Vietnam warning about "the risks and realties" of irregular migration.

The Salvation Army says that modern slavery is "hidden in plain sight" and wants the public to watch out of the signs, such as workers that look frightened, unkempt, malnourished or have untreated injuries.

Other signs are less obvious such as someone else paying for a worker's travel, speaking for them, picking up and dropping them off from work at unusual times, or the worker not being sure of their own address.