Modern Slavery
What’s the issue?
- Modern slavery is the fastest-growing area of international crime, impacting an estimated 50 million people each year.
- In the UK alone, an estimated 122,000 people are caught in some form of modern slavery (including slavery, human trafficking, indentured servitude, bonded labour).
- As a crime, it preys upon the most vulnerable, seizing on political instability, economic hardship, and a rapidly changing climate to generate an estimated $150bn of illegal profits each year.
What’s our position?
- As an organisation committed to protecting the rights and dignity of all workers, we recognise that modern slavery, forced and bonded labour, and human trafficking violate the very foundations of occupational health and safety.
- The UK needs a strong legislative regime to tackle modern slavery; in all its forms.
Therefore, we call on the Government to:
- Introduce a new Modern Slavery Act before the end of this Parliament, which strengthens enforcement and accountability, increases penalties for corporate non-compliance, and places support and protection for victims at its core.
- Provide law enforcement agencies, the Courts and Tribunals Service, and wider support services with the powers and funding they need to tackle modern slavery and provide support to victims and their families.
- Allow legal recourse to be taken, against UK headquartered companies, in UK courts, by those involved in modern slavery overseas.
- In the meantime, give Section 54 teeth, such as a single central registry, board sign-off, independent auditing of high risk supply chains (not just internal auditing) and strong civil penalties, including disqualification for persistent non-compliance.
Understanding the role we all play in spotting the warning signs of exploitation and modern slavery, we call on employers to:
- Conduct thorough assessments of operations and supply chains to identify high-risk areas where modern slavery might occur.
- Develop a comprehensive anti-slavery policy that clearly defines what employers should look for and which lays out how they can report concerns.
- Provide training to staff at all levels, particularly those in HR, procurement and management, to recognise the warning signs of exploitation.
Asks:
In our workplaces (For employers):
- Conduct thorough assessments of operations and supply chains to identify high-risk areas where modern slavery might occur.
- Develop a comprehensive anti-slavery policy that clearly defines what employees should look for and how they can report their concerns.
- Train staff at all levels, particularly those in HR, procurement, and management, to recognise warning signs of exploitation.
Across the UK (Government, policymakers and regulatory):
- Introduce a new Modern Slavery Act before the end of this Parliament, which strengthens enforcement and accountability, increases penalties for corporate non-compliance, and places support and protection for victims at its core.
- Provide law enforcement agencies, the Courts and Tribunals Service, and wider support services with the powers and funding they need to tackle modern slavery and provide support to victims and their families.
- Allow legal recourse to be taken, against UK headquartered companies, in UK courts, by those involved in modern slavery overseas.
- Give Section 54 teeth, such as a single central registry, board sign-off, independent auditing of high-risk supply chains (not just internal auditing) and strong civil penalties, including disqualification for persistent non-compliance.
- Make slavery-free supply chains a hard condition of winning government contracts: require due diligence plans, audit rights, grievance mechanisms, and remediation funds in all contracts over a threshold set by the Government and which is reviewed in each Parliament.
- Create a multi-agency Labour Exploitation Taskforce (GLAA, HMRC, HSE, NCA, CPS, Border Force) with shared intel, joint warrants, and asset-seizure targets, fund specialist prosecutors, expand GLAA licensing into high-risk sectors (care, construction, carwashes, agriculture, logistics).
Globally:
- Greater cross-border legal co-operation allowing for the prosecution of offenders across national and jurisdictional boundaries.
- Insert mandatory human-rights due diligence and cooperation clauses in trade deals, fund joint investigations with origin/transit countries and Europol/Interpol.
- Expand certification programs that guarantee slavery-free production, giving consumers and businesses clear alternatives.