Justice and Care shortlisted for ‘Medium Charity of the Year’ at Third Sector Awards

Justice and Care has been shortlisted in the ‘Medium Charity of the Year’ category at the prestigious 2023 Third Sector Awards.

Our ‘Car Wash’ film, which shows how modern slavery victims are often hidden in plain sight, is also a contender for ‘Best Charity Film – Medium’. It was developed as the centrepiece of a campaign for the Coalition to Stop Slavery – which saw a group of charities join together to raise awareness of human trafficking.

The highly competitive Third Sector Awards recognise the outstanding work carried out by charities and voluntary sector organisations, and the companies that support them. The ‘Charity of the Year’ award will go to the organisation that ‘has had a truly exceptional year and whose recent achievements have attracted the admiration of the sector’. 

Previous winners of this accolade include upReach, Islamic Relief, Family Action and The Safer Living Foundation. This year’s winners will be announced at a ceremony held in London on 22 September. 

We were shortlisted due to our breakthroughs in 2022/23, including: 

• Brilliant frontline work with survivors of human trafficking that is bringing freedom, changing lives and sparking change at scale – including our work convincing the government to consider a change in the law in the UK on the offence of cuckooing.
• Our groundbreaking Victim Navigator Programme has been recognised with awards and plaudits from investigators, top politicians and officials, and most importantly survivors. Around 40% of survivors normally engage with police investigations – but when a Navigator is involved, more than 92% do.
• In Bangladesh, we have seen a 105% increase in witness attendance in human trafficking offence tribunals we have been involved with, and have created case law by allowing trafficking victims to give evidence remotely.
• Our Country Director in Bangladesh, Tariqul Islam, has been named by the US State Department as one of the global heroes in the fight against human trafficking.
• Alongside the McCain Institute, we developed the Prosecutors Consortium – with leading human trafficking lawyers from around the world coming together to help increase convictions of trafficking gangs.
• The Coalition to Stop Slavery campaign – we helped bring together leading anti-slavery charities in a campaign that reached 1 in 10 of the adult population.
• Our work with The Guardian to tell the story of Julia, a survivor of human trafficking, in a groundbreaking four part podcast series.

Our Chair of Trustees in the UK, James Thomas, said: ‘It is an honour to be nominated, not once but twice, after an outstanding year at Justice and Care.

‘The nominations serve as an acknowledgement of the relentless hard work every person at this charity puts in to help survivors of modern slavery, and our supporters who make everything that we do possible.

‘We are looking forward to celebrating every nominee’s achievements at the ceremony on 22 September.’