Is your company benefitting from modern slavery? 

More than 150 years after slavery was officially abolished, there are more slaves than ever before. It is estimated that as many as 40 million people are estimated to be trapped in modern slavery worldwide. These include workers abused around the world and in your city, forced under threat of punishment to work, or to provide services without being able to leave.

Modern slavery laws have thrust much of the responsibility for fighting these abuses onto the corporate sector, making supply chain transparency an increasingly important topic. Companies are now expected to take a proactive role to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place within their businesses or any of their suppliers. 

VinciWorks’ new brief but comprehensive course will help employees understand the realities of modern-day slavery, the legislation being used to fight it, and what your company can do to help. 

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As human trafficking increases in 2022, countries adapt to the challenge

Modern slavery is as important a topic as ever today. The exploitation and trafficking of people for commercial gain is a greater global problem than even during the days of the transatlantic slave trade centuries ago.

Modern slavery examples

A number of current global events are exacerbating the problems of modern slavery. Russia’s war against Ukraine has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, making them vulnerable to traffickers who can easily abduct them for exploitation. Children are particularly vulnerable amidst the refugee crisis, as are women. While no one has any numbers, reports indicate that, in the words of a UN official, human trafficking is evolving into “a crisis within a crisis”. 

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, where extreme poverty is prevalent following the Taliban’s takeover of the country last year, desperation has made forced labour commonplace. In addition, a growing number of families are choosing to sell their children into forced marriages in order to have money to buy food. 

We’d like to think slavery has been consigned to history, but sadly, that’s far from true. According to Anti-Slavery International, it is estimated that 40 million people are trapped in modern slavery today. According to the Global Slavery Index, there is a surprisingly high rate of slavery in developed countries: an estimated one in 800 people in the US, for example, and 10,000 people in the UK, though the real number is probably much higher. Another possibly surprising fact is that roughly 90% of slaves are victimised by private enterprise, and that may be because it seems profitable: $150 billion is generated from the forced labor industry every year.

Being an enabler of modern slavery is not only terrible on an ethical level; it can also cause severe reputational and financial damage on an organisational level. But by knowing what to look out for, asking the right questions, and knowing how to respond, you and your organisation can take an active part in helping abolish modern slavery.

Everyone, everywhere, has the has the right to live a life free of slavery. We’d like to think slavery has been consigned to history, but unfortunately, that’s far from true. While it may look different than the traditional slavery-associated images of shackles and transatlantic ships, and while it may be kept just out of site, it is actually taking place everywhere, in every single country around the world. 

When people are severely exploited by others for personal or commercial gain, this is modern slavery. This exploitation can take many forms, from human trafficking, to forced labour and bonded labour, descent-based slavery, forced child labour, and forced and early marriage. Some of these, such as descent-based slavery, are more prevalent in places such as Africa, but many others are prevalent everywhere, including all throughout Western society.

Though millions of men, women and children are being held in slavery and deprived of their basic human freedom, and there is much work to be done, there are slivers of progress being made to tackle modern-day slavery. What are governments around the world doing to help tackle this dreadful phenomenon? 

Is slavery a thing of the past? Unfortunately not. According to the Global Slavery Index, it is estimated that on any given day, there are 15,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in Australia. Cases of forced labour exploitation are especially high in industries considered high risk, such as agriculture, construction, domestic labour, meat processing, cleaning, hospitality, and food services.

As such, Australia’s implementation of the Modern Slavery Act 2018, which came into effect on 1 January 2019 was a welcome, if overdue, step in the effort to combat modern slavery. While the act technically went into effect last year, 2020 is the first year that organisations that fall within the scope of the law will actually be required to report.