Reproduced from Rotary Magazine, March 2026 by Dave King.
Just days before Christmas, a Vietnamese family arrived in County Durham with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
They had been found working in a nail bar in Bournemouth, a business that, on the surface, appeared legitimate, but which concealed a darker reality below ground. The mother and her two children had been living and working under coercive conditions. One daughter was still missing, feared dead.
Moved to a safe house in north-east England, the family were traumatised, disoriented and frightened. They had no belongings, no local connections and no clear understanding of what would happen next.
With the mother too afraid to disclose the full story, they could not yet be formally referred into the government’s National Referral Mechanism – the system that provides victims of modern slavery with accommodation, legal support and protection.
In that gap, between rescue and recognition, Junction 7 stepped in.
“We see these gaps all the time,” explained Simon Day, the charity’s founder, and a Rotarian. “If someone falls between systems, they still need feeding, to be clothed and supported. That’s where we come in.”
