Thus The Guardian today. “Government strategy launched as number of victims found to be up to four times higher than previously thought,” elaborates the newspaper. In 2013, the first year in which the government had made an official estimate, the number was put at some three-thousand. In other words, it may be still higher next year. The victims of modern slavery include women forced into prostitution, domestic staff, and workers in fields. Apparently, the phenomenon is deeply hidden and a great challenge to assess. In addition, it has to be handled with utmost care because of its sensitivity. The modern slavery bill is now going through the parliament. It will provide courts in England and Wales with powers to protect victims of human trafficking, but there are many doubts about the effectiveness of such measures. Many victims are foreign nationals from countries such as Romania, Poland, Albania, and Nigeria. One of the biggest barriers to freeing the victims are the repercussions that their family members may face at home, which means that action has to be coordinated with authorities overseas. Of course, Britain is hardly the only country where modern slavery is rampant. By extension, the number of people working as slaves in the European Union is likely to run into hundreds of thousands. Human trafficking is a serious business, after all. As the number of migrants grows, so does the lucrative business.