Thought provoking exhibition Modern Slavery comes to Eastleigh Museum
14 January 2022
The Modern Slavery Partnership’s emotive and thought provoking exhibition ‘The Real Faces of Modern Slavery: Unmasking The Truth’ will be showing at Eastleigh Museum from 15th January 2022.
The exhibition is a journey through the compelling stories of survivors identified and supported within our surrounding area depicting their experiences, past and present, as well as their future aspirations as they start to rebuild their lives. The exhibition includes information that sets out what slavery looks like today, the forms it takes and where it takes place.
The exhibition started its tour at Westbury Manor Museum, a Hampshire Cultural Trust community venue in Fareham on 5th October before moving to Portsmouth Libraries in November 2021 and now Eastleigh Museum, which is also operated by Hampshire Cultural Trust.
1750 people visited the exhibition at Westbury Museum and over 8,500 library visitors in Portsmouth had the opportunity to view it; some of their comments include:
“Seeing the numbers for Fareham makes me realise this is happening here, now.”
“It is disturbing that in this age, people are still being exploited. I will make an effort to be more aware of signs and help if I can.”
Exploitation types found within Hampshire include sexual exploitation of both adults and children, criminal exploitation including that within county lines and cannabis factories, labour exploitation such as that taking place in nail bars and car washes and financial exploitation in the form of benefit fraud.
Donna Jones, Police and Crime Commissioner and Chair of the Modern Slavery Partnership, said, “Modern day slaves look just like me or you. It’s not all about people being trafficked in from other countries. They could be a sex worker being exploited by a criminal gang, they could be a drugs mule running county lines to move drugs around the country.
“This exhibition really makes you stop and think about what modern day slavery is and realise that it could be happening in your community. If more people recognise it and report it, then we can crack down and stop modern day slavery.”
Paul Sapwell, Chief Executive at Hampshire Cultural Trust, commented: “This exhibition is so important in raising awareness of modern day slavery and the impact it has on the lives of local survivors. We are delighted to host this exhibition at four of Hampshire Cultural Trust’s venues, including Eastleigh Museum, where the exhibition also includes an introduction to historic slavery.”
This exhibition has been developed as a partnership initiative to raise awareness of Modern Slavery and it is hoped that visitors will leave with an understanding of how this can manifest in different scenarios within our everyday lives.
If you would like further information then please visit www.modernslaverypartnership.org.uk
If you come across a situation where someone is in immediate danger then please call the Police on 999 or for non-emergencies 101.