Kevin Hyland is a former UK police officer who served for 30 years investigating serious crime and headed London’s Scotland Yard Human Trafficking Unit until 2014.

He was appointed the UK’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and was elected as Ireland’s representative to the Council of Europe Experts Group on Human Trafficking until December 2022.

From 2020 to 2022, he worked inspecting prisons and investigating deaths in custody across Ireland.

He is the Chair of Arise Foundation, a global human trafficking organization, and Rahab, a London-based charity supporting exploited women in communities and prisons. He is also a board member of the Passage, a London-based homeless charity, and Liberty Shared, a US-based human rights organization that identifies human trafficking in the business sector. He is an advisor to the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

He has a Master of Laws, LL.M (first Hons).

He is the lead (global) advisor of the Santa Marta Group, a partnership of law enforcement, civil society and faith groups launched at the Vatican in 2014 and endorsed by Pope Francis.

He chairs the G20 Interfaith Forum and leads efforts for G20 nations to increase resources allocated to human trafficking prevention.

He has received numerous awards for policing and human rights, including being appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2015 and joint recipient of the 2018 UN Path to Peace Award.