This toolkit, jointly developed by STOP THE TRAFFIK and Shiva Foundation, seeks to provide practical guidance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on how they can prevent modern slavery in their business operations. We recognise that many useful resources are available already and we provide reference to them in our further resources list, however, none of the existing free resources are designed specifically for SMEs. SMEs are crucial to the UK economy, employing over 60% of those working in the private sector. Therefore, SMEs are also crucial to preventing modern slavery and should be at the centre of the national strategy. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act, the UK’s flagship legislation to prevent modern slavery, is designed so that large companies are targeted by the legislation and in turn cascade awareness and mitigation efforts down their supply chains to smaller businesses. Although the learnings are gradually being passed on to SMEs in this way, we believe that more needs to be done to provide the SMEs with the tools to proactively prevent modern slavery themselves.
Under the regime of private company or multi-stakeholder voluntary codes of conduct and industry social auditing, workers have absorbed low wages and unsafe and abusive conditions; labour leaders and union members have become the targets of both gov...Read More
Child labour has long been a feature of economic life in the Arab region, particularly in agriculture, small traditional craft shops, and informal industries such as garment and carpet making, as well as some construction-related activities. Childre...Read More
The vast majority of modern slavery and human trafficking cases involve interaction with finance in some form. In many cases, traffickers exploit their victims financially, taking control of their bank accounts, confiscating wages, and using debt as...Read More
The failure of governments to protect workers’ rights in the global economy has left a yawning gap of regulation and helped spawn an $80 billion industry in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social auditing. Yet the experience of the last ...Read More
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