When power becomes exploitation: a conversation with Tanya Addison
Tanya Addison wants to use her experience to help businesses and young people recognise exploitation and challenge abuses of power. At just 23 years old, she experienced abuse while working for Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods. In July, the Home Office formally recognised her as a victim of modern slavery. Today, Tanya is Director of Fundraising and Strategic Development at a children’s charity, a Lived ExperienceAmbassador for It’s a Penalty and a mother to one son. She loves animals and enjoys dog walking and playing tennis in her spare time. She now wants to help others understand how exploitation can happen in apparently respectable workplaces and what needs to change to prevent it.
Al Fayed has been accused of rape and sexual assault and exploitation by numerous women, including former employees of the department store.
Ahead of Anti-Slavery Day, Tanya sat down with It’s a Penalty to share her experience and reflections on recognition, support and what she thinks needs to change for survivors.
Recognising modern slavery beyond the stereotypes
In July, Tanya received a positive Conclusive Grounds decision from the Home Office, formally recognising her as a victim of modern slavery (also known as human trafficking) in connection with her experience working in Harrods for Al Fayed.
“That was a significant moment, but for me, recognition is only one part of a much bigger conversation” she says.
The explanation accompanying the decision also resonated with her. Tanya highlighted passages describing coercion, fraud, deception and the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability. These descriptions connected with her experience and helped explain why exploitation is not always straightforward to recognise.
“It doesn’t always involve physical restraint or someone being held against their will. It can happen in respectable environments, involving wealthy, influential and powerful individuals.”
Threats, deception, dependency and significant imbalances of power can be used to control and exploit someone, even where there are no obvious physical barriers to leaving. Recognising those dynamics requires looking beyond familiar images of captivity or force.
As Tanya explains, that recognition can be difficult even for the person experiencing it.
“Exploitation doesn’t always look the way people expect it to, and survivors don’t necessarily recognise or understand what is happening to them at the time.”
She wants sharing her experience to help others understand what they might otherwise overlook.
“I am happy to share my personal story if it will serve to help protect others moving forward.”
Exploitation can hide behind power and respectability
Tanya wants businesses to question the assumption that exploitation is something that happens elsewhere.
“Modern slavery is often seen as something that happens in supply chains, overseas or in situations that are easy to identify. But exploitation can happen much closer to home, in environments that appear entirely respectable.”
A respected name, a successful organisation or an influential leader can make harmful behaviour harder to recognise and harder to challenge. Tanya wants businesses to understand coercion, dependency and abuse of power, and to examine whether their own cultures make it safe for people to raise concerns.
Her question for businesses goes beyond whether they have a safeguarding policy. What happens when a concern involves someone senior, influential or commercially important? Who can an employee turn to, and can they trust that person to act?
Organisations need reporting processes that work in precisely those circumstances: somewhere to turn outside the authority of the person involved, protection when raising concerns, and a response that does not depend on someone’s status.
“The burden of challenging exploitation should not rest almost entirely on the person experiencing it.”
For Tanya, accountability means examining the behaviour of those who hold power and the systems around them. Protecting an influential person’s reputation must never take priority over protecting people.
Recognition is only the beginning
Formal recognition can be an important step, but Tanya wants greater attention to what follows it.
“Being formally recognised as a victim does not automatically mean you feel safe, receive the right support or are able to move forward with your life.”
Navigating legal processes, finding appropriate help and rebuilding a life can require sustained support. Tanya wants recognition to be followed by consistent assistance, rather than survivors having to repeatedly make the case for being heard or helped.
“Survivors should not have to fight repeatedly to be heard, believed or supported.”
Too often, she says, attention falls on a survivor’s behaviour, credibility or reasons for not leaving or speaking out sooner. She wants that attention to shift towards the circumstances that made speaking out difficult and the responsibility of organisations to respond.
“We should not expect survivors to spend years fighting to be believed, fighting to receive support and fighting to achieve accountability.”
The question is therefore bigger than whether exploitation has been formally recognised. It is whether that recognition helps someone access support, regain control of their life and pursue accountability.
Turning lived experience into prevention
Tanya’s plans include speaking to businesses and helping young people recognise exploitation before they enter the workplace.
“I would love to speak to students and young people before they enter the workplace, helping them understand that exploitation isn’t always obvious.”
She wants young people to know that someone’s seniority, influence or success does not mean they have to accept inappropriate behaviour. Alongside recognising warning signs, she wants them to feel able to seek advice and raise concerns without fearing for their future prospects.
That confidence needs to be matched by organisations willing to listen and respond. Education can help someone recognise a problem, but workplace cultures and reporting processes must make it possible to act on that knowledge.
Tanya also sees a wider role for survivors in shaping training, policy and safeguarding procedures. Their contribution should extend beyond recounting what happened to them.
“Lived experience is expertise.”
She wants that expertise to inform decisions, helping businesses understand how exploitation develops, where protections can fail and what would make a response more effective.
For Tanya, the purpose of sharing her story is to help change what happens next: whether another person recognises exploitation sooner, whether an organisation responds differently, and whether people who abuse their power are held accountable.
Giving survivors control of their stories
The way survivors are heard matters as much as whether they are given a platform. Tanya wants journalists to examine how exploitation was allowed to happen, rather than returning repeatedly to its most shocking details.
“Questions such as ‘Why didn’t you leave?’ can suggest that the responsibility lay with the person being exploited.”
Reporting can instead explore the power imbalance, pressures and circumstances that made leaving or speaking out difficult. It can also give survivors space to discuss their work, ambitions and ideas for change.
“A survivor’s story belongs to them. The media may be entrusted with telling it, but that should never mean taking control of it.”
That distinction also informs her concerns about non-disclosure agreements. Tanya recognises legitimate reasons for confidentiality and the importance of protecting survivors’ privacy. But she wants organisations to challenge confidentiality arrangements used to silence people or shield those accused of abuse.
“Protecting a reputation should never take precedence over confronting wrongdoing.”
A stronger conclusion
Tanya wants her experience to contribute to practical change: businesses questioning their cultures, young people feeling able to raise concerns, and survivors helping design the systems intended to protect them.
“I know I cannot change what happened to me. But I can decide what I do with that experience now.”
This Anti-Slavery Day, her message asks us to recognise exploitation beyond the stereotypes. Wealth, status and a respectable workplace do not guarantee safety. Recognising coercion and abuse of power must be accompanied by safe ways to report concerns, sustained support and a willingness to hold people accountable.
Survivors’ expertise can help organisations understand what they have overlooked. Involving them in prevention means putting that knowledge into practice—so the next person is more likely to be recognised, heard and protected.
Tanya is available for keynote speeches and corporate engagements, sharing her first-hand experience of modern slavery and exploitation while working at Harrods. Her talks explore how abuse of power enables exploitation and what organisations can do to recognise, prevent and respond to it. To enquire about booking Tanya, please complete our enquiry form: https://forms.gle/KU85L8FKSKcGTzR7A
If you are worried that you or someone else is being exploited in the UK, please contact the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline on 08000 121 700, or call 999 in an emergency. For international support, please head to Make a Report.