Car Wash Association welcomes Clewer Initiative’s anti-slavery safe car wash app

Brian Madderson, chairman of the Car Wash Association (CWA), welcomed the latest report from the Clewer Initiative, the anti-slavery arm of the Church of England, which showed nearly 1000 reports of potential human trafficking made via their mobile app.

Launched in Lambeth Palace by the Bishop of Derby last year in conjunction with the Catholic Church, the app enables users to report concerns about potential modern slavery at hand car washes across the country.

“Modern slavery and human trafficking are serious issues in the hand car wash (HCW) sector and so we warmly welcome the great efforts being made by the Church of England and the Catholic Church to help tackle it.”

“The government’s response to modern slavery in the UK has been woefully lacklustre, despite a recent hard-hitting investigation by Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee into HCWs which acknowledged the sheer scale of the problem and the lack of enforcement of existing regulations that might help prevent it.”

The national police lead for England has estimated that there could be as many as 20,000 HCWs operating in the UK, with most unchecked by regulatory authorities for tax, environmental and employment abuses.

Madderson continues: “With such scant support from Government, it has fallen to the Church and civil society to step forward to meet this challenge. We urge everyone to report any HCWs they are concerned about by using this easy and effective app.”

The app is available for download for mobile on iOS from Apple’s App Store and for Android from Google Play.