19/10/2026
🌍 EUROPEAN ANTI-TRAFFICKING DAY | LANGUAGE ACCESS IS SAFEGUARDING
Every survivor deserves to be heard, understood and supported.
🗣️ In 2011, I shared a warning about human trafficking and suspicious job offers abroad. Today, the message remains relevant, but my professional focus has developed further: how can we ensure that people experiencing exploitation can actually access the protection, information and support they need?
📊 In 2025, 23,411 potential victims of modern slavery were referred to the UK’s National Referral Mechanism. In Slovakia, 63 victims of human trafficking were identified, including 27 children.
These figures represent identified or referred cases, not the full extent of exploitation.
🗣️Behind every statistic is a person whose circumstances, language, culture and individual needs must be understood.
I thoroughly e hated my tine sitting as Anti-Trafficking & Wellbeing Advocate and later as LifeLine Advocate with some wonderful humans at Causeway Charity, form City Hearts in Sheffield!
We literally changed lives around the many hone and international survivors!
💜 Why language services, therapy spaces and advocacy matter?
For a survivor who does not speak English confidently, accessing support can be frightening and complicated. Explaining abuse, understanding legal rights, communicating with the police, accessing healthcare or navigating accommodation and recovery services can become additional barriers.
🗣️Qualified, independent interpreters help people communicate accurately and understand important information. Independent advocacy helps survivors understand their options, exercise their rights and have their needs heard.
Trauma aware therapy or life coaching provides a safe space and platform the post-traumatic growth.
Neither should replace the survivor’s own voice or choices.
🗣️As a Chartered Linguist, public service interpreter, life & conflict coach and intercultural consultant, my professional experience spans public services, policing, healthcare, education, community engagement and safeguarding-related communication.
🗣️Through Kriváň Intercultural UK, I am interested in working collaboratively with charities, specialist helplines, crisis centres, survivor-support organisations and public services to strengthen culturally responsive and accessible communication.
🤝 How I can support organisations
• Language access consultancy: reviewing communication barriers and helping organisations make information and support accessible to people with limited English.
• Interpreting and communication support: professional language services for appropriate assignments, helping people communicate accurately in sensitive and high-stakes settings.
• Trauma-informed intercultural communication: practical guidance and training for teams working with people affected by exploitation, abuse, trauma or complex cultural and communication needs.
• Advocacy-informed practice: helping organisations recognise the importance of informed choice, dignity, confidentiality, safeguarding and access to independent support.
• Community engagement: building bridges between services and Central and Eastern European communities, including Slovak- and Czech-speaking people who may not know where to turn for help.
🗣️My approach is person-centred, culturally informed and grounded in professional boundaries. Effective support requires collaboration between interpreters, advocates, safeguarding professionals and specialist services.
💜 A message to colleagues at Caritas, The Salvation Army and organisations working on the frontline: thank you for the work you do to protect people and support survivors on their journey towards safety and recovery.
🤝I welcome conversations with charities, helplines, crisis centres and organisations looking to strengthen their language provision, intercultural practice or staff training.
Because understanding is not a luxury in safeguarding. It is part of making support accessible.
Kriváň Intercultural UK
Crisis Language Support | Advocacy | Intercultural Communication | Consultancy | Interpersonal Conflict poaching | Community Dispute Resolution
📧 [email protected]
