PREVENTING MODERN SLAVERY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN

A staggering 40 million people are currently estimated to be victims of modern slavery world-wide. Domestic work, agriculture, construction and manufacturing are among the most prevalent sectors with migrant workers being particularly vulnerable.

The International Labour Organization says that at any given moment, approximately 5 out of every thousand workers on the planet are suffering from some form of modern slavery.

1 of 4 of those victims are children. I personally work with the UN Global Compact Network to eradicate child forced labour in supply chains, this is unfortunately a growing problem.

So what is the problem that needs solving?

Modern slavery refers to situations in which persons are coerced to work under conditions that they haven’t necessarily chosen themselves, whether by the use of violence and intimidation, or through more subtle means such as the withholding of wages or through an accumulated debt, exorbitant recruitment fees or the retention of identity papers like passports which restrict workers from leaving their workplaces.

Global labour supply chains containing multiple levels of suppliers, contractors and subcontractors, particularly in the developing world, where labour laws are either non existent or not enforced, provide fertile ground for modern slavery and forced labour conditions to arise. And the reality is, that every supply chain has a “blind spot” and often this is a result of the sub-contracting through the value chain to a point of no visibility, no control and no process.

Traffickers and unscrupulous recruitment agents pray upon marginalized and vulnerable workers because their particular circumstances make them reluctant to seek help from authorities and their vulnerabilities make it easier to coerce and manipulate them.

These workers are often forced to take up sizeable loans to pay recruiters upfront for promised jobs in other countries only to learn that when they get there the terms of their contract have changed, often significantly, and that the job that they were originally promised no longer exists. Once they arrive, they often also face dismal working conditions and chronically low wages that will barely cover their ever mounting interest charges on their loans.

The issue of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking transcends economies and industries. There are victims in both the developed and developing countries in a wide variety of job settings including hospitality, construction, apparel, and food production and its pervasive.

The most recent report from the department of labour lists 139 products produced in seventy-five different countries that have either used forced labour, child labour, or both.?

The products include items such as cocoa, electronics, footwear, and even surgical instruments.

This is clearly not an isolated problem. It is significant both in terms of its scope as well as its moral and ethical implications. The reality is, every single supply chain has violations relating to modern slavery, and every company has a legal and moral duty to take the steps to eradicate it. It is the right thing to do.

So what’s the response?

The world is changing, growing expectations from customers, investors, stakeholders, governments around being sustainable and ethical – as a driver for growth and just doing the right thing. Preventing modern slavery in the supply chain is not about consequence management, albeit, violations of this nature have the ability to cause catastrophic financial instability, significant reputational damage and can make the business unattractive to new talent, but purpose driven organizations that care about people and the planet and about doing the right thing, they are leading the way, creating change, for the better.

Our expertise in this area reveals that leading companies are embracing their obligations under the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, and are taking deliberate steps to help prevent abuses by:

1.????Gaining greater visibility of modern slavery compliance in the supply chain by having a robust vetting process in place that captures modern slavery policies, reviewing and monitoring them on a regular basis

2.????Promoting greater awareness among their supply chain

3.????Implementing effective standards and action plans which support the elimination of forced labour in their supply chains.

This is quickly becoming a compliance issue, as governments too are beginning to recognise their obligations to protect human rights and prevent abuses by enacting regulatory legislation like the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, that compels corporate entities to take actions to ensure that they are not responsible for or contributing to modern slavery practices in their global supply chains and operations.

Beyond complying with the law, companies are increasingly implementing and updating their codes of conduct and integrating their enterprise risk management systems and programmes into their supply chains. At Alcumus, we work with companies to create global supplier onboarding systems, supplier vetting and assessments for modern slavery and into wider ESG topics like anti bribery, financial stability and quality. By creating compliance, we create quality actionable data that can proactively drive decision making, identify and reduce risk, linking directly to principal risks on the global risk register where most organizations now focus on preventing modern slavery in supply chains.

Many companies require contractual commitments and other measures from their suppliers that allow for more regular monitoring, auditing and reporting of their labour conditions with a specific focus on eliminating the potential for trafficking and forced labour within their supply chain.

But some key challenges exist. These include

1.????The difficulty of detecting and uncovering less visible forms of modern slavery (we work with Unseen, the UK's leading charity dedicated to eradicating modern slavery and human trafficking, they are changing the game in helping companies understand how to spot the signs and raising awareness from board down - check them out https://www.unseenuk.org/, Unseen do so much to help solve the problem, including creating the UKs Modern Slavery Helpline https://www.unseenuk.org/what-we-do/helpline-resource-centre)

2.????The inability to exercise significant influence or control over third party contractors and their respective suppliers, especially as individual companies.

3.????Coming to terms with the sheer complexity and scale of supply chain ecosystems and the difficulty of mapping and policing them

4.????And of course the regulatory or lack of regulatory oversight and enforcement in many source countries, there are still over 3000 companies in the UK, that meet the requirements of the modern slavery act to produce a modern slavery statement, and are still yet to produce one.

Typical elements that buying companies can and should address in their sourcing policies are the implementation of safeguards against such things as the retention of passports, recruitment fees that can lead to worker indebtedness, the withholding of wages, the physical and psychological coercion of workers, and of course any restrictions on freedom of movement.

So how can we help?

This is obviously a complex area and Alcumus actively supports companies in addressing issues around modern slavery, forced labour, human trafficking in supply chains.

Not only do we help companies fulfil their compliance and disclosure obligations, with relevant regulations, we also help companies review their codes of practice and systems against international best practice to identify any gaps and ensure that robust supplier requirement and compliance are in place.

We also work with suppliers and contractors to help them implement appropriate safeguards so that we can help coordinate a joined up plan, where together, we can all help to reduce risks and eradicate modern slavery in the supply chains around the globe.

For those of you not familiar with Alcumus SafeContractor, we are supporting companies to ensure they have a Health and Safety compliant, CSR/ESG verified ,insured, qualified and competent supply chain with increased visibility of that compliance from tier 1 right through to tier 4 and 5 of their supply chain, embedding and integrating a robust vetting process that builds specific risk profiles to suppliers and contractors, giving peace of mind that everyone coming to site is safe to do so and that they only complete the works they are there to do and audited to do, giving comfort and confidence that they are safe to use and meet the same ethical values as your organization.

Giving you the ability to understand who has a modern slavery policy, who does not, who should based on the modern slavery act – allowing you to drive action.

We present this visibility and data back to organisations through our contractor management system, data rich dashboards, with continuous monitoring, like insurances, and strategic sourcing tools with access to our compliant supplier and contractor ecosystem of 35,000 and reporting especially around who has completed the pre-qualification process, who has not, who is a risk and requires action.

But it does not stop there, end to end supply chain management need not be a complex series of disparate systems and that is where we can add additional value and visibility by introducing permit to work and authorisation systems that integrate, contractor accident and incident management, risk assessment and site audits right through to statutory property compliance, CAFM and contractor performance, including accident frequency rates and root cause analysis with trend and benchmarking linking to principal risks of the global risk register.

Whether you are looking to digitalise existing processes, meet ISO 45001 requirements, raise compliance standards, benchmark against your sector, rationalise an outgrown chain, BPO due to budget and capacity constraints, leverage a compliant supply chain for growth especially in the tendering process, improve data integrity or simply defend reputation and values, and finally support how you demonstrate social value and social impact by prioritizing SME’s and providing capital investment to economies and communities local to your operations and sites, Alcumus can/ we can help and please get in touch for a demonstration of our solutions.

I've included our whitepaper on "preventing modern slavery in the supply chain" in the comments below.

https://www.alcumus.com/en-gb/insights/whitepapers/global-supply-chains-modern-slavery-exposure/

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