IT can come as a shock to realise that tens of millions of people are held in bondage today, working under compulsion for little or no pay, denied their freedom of movement and deprived of their identity documents.

It can come as an even greater shock to realise that some of these enslaved labourers – the Home Office estimated 10,000 to 13,000 – are living in the UK.

We in the UK may have connections with other enslaved labourers around the world. If we haven’t been very careful to shop ethically, slave labour may lie behind our food, our clothes, and our appliances.

At the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which I recently attended as part of an Anglican Communion delegation, moves to end modern slavery were a key topic. We were introduced to the scale of the problem and the greed for profits that drives it.

We heard painful testimony from and about women who had been trafficked and enslaved about what it meant to be “treated like a thing.”.

Kevin Hyland, the UK’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, spoke about the UK’s Modern Slavery Strategy.

This includes the Modern Slavery Bill, currently going through Parliament, as well as other measures designed to provide protection to victims and to “ensure that the UK becomes a very dangerous place for traffickers and slave traders to operate”.

Slavery is big business – illegal profits are estimated at $150bn – but more than 80 per cent of the world’s people are influenced by religion.

What can we do locally? First of all, we can recognise slavery as an issue here, where we are, as well as globally.

We can support local groups such as Oxford Community Against Trafficking, that raise awareness of trafficking and slavery and teach us how to respond.

And we can join in with larger initiatives by asking businesses about their anti-slavery policies and deliberately choosing to buy products from companies that work ethically.