Slavery resources

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) requires large companies to check their entire supply chain for harm to people and the planet, and to fix what they find. It’s not the directive civil society fought for. Political and corporate pressure weakened key provisions before a single Member State has even transposed it into national law. But it’s still a legal tool worth fighting with.

Right now, EU Member States are turning the CSDDD into their own national laws. That process will decide something very concrete: whether a worker or community harmed by a company can actually get justice and compensation — or whether the system stays stacked against them.

Developed by the European Coalition for Corporate Justice, Anti-Slavery International and Frank Bold, the guide sets out what ambitious, effective transposition looks like, with priority recommendations for Member States, including:

• Effective, ongoing due diligence : companies should treat due diligence as a continuous process, not a form filled in once and forgotten
• Civil liability and access to justice : people harmed by a company should be able to hold it accountable and obtain compensation
• Independent, resourced supervisory authorities : enforcement bodies need the skills, staffing, and power to actually investigate and act
• Meaningful stakeholder engagement : workers and affected communities must be consulted in ways that are enforceable, not symbolic
• Climate transition plans with teeth : companies should be required to adopt and implement plans that lead to real emissions cuts, not paperwork
• Alignment with international standards : national rules should reflect existing global consensus, including the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Other contributors: Amnesty International, Business and Human Rights Centre, CIDSE, Clean Clothes Campaign International Office, European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, Friends of the Earth Europe, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), ShareAction

The Immigration and Asylum Bill will significantly weaken the UK’s response to trafficking and modern slavery. It will deny access to identification, protection, support and recovery to many survivors. This approach punishes survivors, will embolden traffickers and in doing so enable exploitation to thrive, harming individuals, communities and our economy.

This Bill continues a destructive approach of prioritising an immigration control agenda over safeguarding survivors of a serious crime. The government has used hostile and unevidenced narratives of system “misuse” and misleading language of “last-minute modern slavery claims” to ‘justify’ weakening modern slavery protections. This creates distrust and scepticism that puts survivors at risk, drives this crime underground and emboldens traffickers. 

This short briefing focuses on identification and support of victims and proposes amendments to such clauses. For long-form briefings on each clause, please click the hyperlinks beside each amendment.

The Immigration and Asylum Bill will significantly weaken the UK’s response to trafficking and modern
slavery. It will deny access to identification, protection, support and recovery to many survivors. This
approach punishes survivors, will embolden traffickers and in doing so enable exploitation to thrive,
harming individuals, communities and our economy

Joint response to the announcement of reforms to the modern slavery framework 

With the announcement today that the new Immigration and Asylum Bill will include reforms to the modern slavery legislative framework, leading organisations and experts warn the government that it cannot end human trafficking and modern slavery without a safeguarding-first response to survivors that shifts the balance of risk decisively onto traffickers. 

While we welcome indications the Bill may include some positive improvements for the identification and support of child trafficking victims, we are concerned that there remains no meaningful commitment to a comprehensive child exploitation strategy. Furthermore, minimal and selective commitments on children must not be used to justify wider reforms that will deny survivors’ protection, embolden traffickers, and place more children at risk of exploitation and harm.

The ‘Decade of dignity’ report is a strategic roadmap to eradicate modern slavery in the UK by 2036. Produced by a coalition of the leading anti-slavery organisations including Anti-Slavery International, the report challenges the current ‘low risk, high reward’ environment that allows exploitation to flourish in plain sight. We move beyond fragmented responses to provide a unified, systemic vision built on four pillars: mandatory corporate accountability, a toughened criminal justice response, survivor-centred recovery, and a national strategy for child protection.

The ‘Decade of dignity’ is our collective commitment to dismantling the systems of exploitation and replacing them with a society where every individual is seen and every person is free.

Modern Slavery (MS) is a serious and growing issue. Local Authorities (LAs) play a key role in identifying and supporting survivors. However, many LAs face challenges in fully adopting their legal responsibilities as First Responders (FRs).  

Following the publication in May 2025 of research on LAs’ implementation of their First Responder responsibilities (see key findings below) and the development of a preliminary training framework, the Middlesex University research team, in partnership with the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG), held further consultations with LAs, NGOs, and lived experience experts to strengthen and refine this framework. 

The finalised training framework, published in February 2026, sets out core guiding principles, a four-tier training structure (from awareness to leadership), and practical recommendations for implementation, designed as a flexible, adaptable structure, rather than a prescriptive curriculum to support councils in developing context-specific, survivor-centred training programmes.  

The study identified several barriers and areas for improvement: 

1. Limited awareness and training: Many LAs staff are unaware of their role as FRs. Training, where available, is often inconsistent and not tailored to local needs. Some staff assume that only the police can deal with MS cases. 

2. Fragmented responses: While some councils have strong MS policies, others lack clear processes for identifying and supporting survivors. This results in an inconsistent approach across different regions. 

3. Barriers to multi-agency working: Effective MS response requires collaboration between LAs, law enforcement, and community groups. However, miscommunication, lack of trust, and unclear responsibilities hinder joint efforts. 

4. Gaps in supply chain oversight: LAs have a legal duty to monitor their supply chains for potential exploitation, but reporting is inconsistent and many councils lack the resources to conduct thorough checks. 

5. Examples of good practice: Some LAs have developed strong partnerships with community organisations, invested in specialist MS teams, and introduced innovative training approaches. These examples highlight what is possible with the right strategies in place. 

This report was produced by Middlesex University in partnership with the  Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group. 

Read the May 2025 research and executive summary here.

Over the past few years, there has been a renewed conflation between modern slavery and immigration enforcement, which is undermining government efforts to tackle modern slavery and leading to the de-prioritisation of measures aimed at addressing it.

This approach has driven legislative and policy changes resulting in unequal access to identification and support for survivors, gradually eroding the protection system that took years of government work to develop and improve. The departure from a human rights-based and victim-centred approach in favour of implementing immigration enforcement policies is harmful to survivors, communities and our society as a whole.

This briefing aims to examine the consequences of this approach, its past and current impact, as well as the potential implications for the future.

Increasingly, countries have, or are legislating, instruments to ban the import of products made by forced labour. These include the US, Canada and Mexico. The EU Forced Labour Regulation, which bans the sale, import and export of goods made using forced labour, is the most recent piece of such statute. Given that the EU single market is currently the world’s largest consumer market, the Regulation has the potential to influence business practices globally, to prevent, end or mitigate forced labour, and to stop companies profiting from forced labour in their supply chains. The Regulation could also drive progress in legislative efforts related to forced labour in other countries, whose companies may be impacted by robust enforcement of the Regulation. Importantly, the Regulation will address a significant gap in the EU legislative framework, as there has previously been no instrument in the EU that prohibits the market flow of products made with forced labour.

The Regulation provides that the Union seeks to eradicate the use of forced labour and promote decent work and labour rights worldwide. Article 11(f) states the European Commission shall make available guidance for economic operators on due diligence in relation to forced labour imposed by state authorities. The purpose of this briefing is to inform the due diligence guidance that the Commission will publish in relation to state-imposed forced labour. It provides what due diligence efforts are expected of companies to identify risks of state-imposed forced labour in operations and supply chains, when disengagement is necessary, and what steps should be taken to swiftly disengage. The draft due diligence provided herein aligns with international guidelines and established principles by international organisations including the ILO, the OECD and the United Nations. 

The briefing also provides a comprehensive explanation of how state-imposed forced labour is distinct from forced labour carried out by private actors. In the former, it is the State –  which has obligations under core human rights treaties and ILO Conventions to protect its population, including from forced labour – that is the perpetrator. This type of forced labour, therefore, requires a different response by companies as the  abuse is carried out in pursuit of government policy and is maintained by the state apparatus itself. This briefing also includes examples of how state-imposed forced labour is currently carried out in various geographic locations and across sectors.

Descent-based slavery refers to the situation of people born into slavery and the practice of perpetuating this situation. A person is usually born into slavery because their ancestors were enslaved and their family has ‘belonged’ to the slave-owning family ever since. The term ‘descent-based slavery’ is mainly used in the West African context. The practice is also referred to as ‘hereditary slavery’. In Mali, slavery status is passed down from mother to child to ensure that future generations are born into slavery.

There are no firm data on the number of people in descent-based slavery in Mali. However, Temedt, Association pour la consolidation de la paix, le développement, la promotion et protection des droits humains estimates that there are 800,000 people of slave descent in Mali, out of a population of around 18 million.

Descent-based slavery contravenes many international instruments ratified by Mali. This report explores current trends in descent-based slavery in Mali, as well as recent responses to the practice and is aimed primarily at representatives of government agencies, international organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academics who are interested in strengthening the response to descent-based slavery and services for all people of slave descent.

Anti-Slavery International, Friends of the Earth, Labour Behind the Label, Corporate Justice Coalition, Transform Trade, Freedom United and Ekō delivered our joint petition of over 145,000 signatures on behalf of over 40 civil society organisations and unions calling for the introduction of a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act.

The outdated Modern Slavery Act is entirely ineffective in driving corporate change to address modern slavery in UK supply chains. Section 17 of the Environment Act on due diligence for forest-risk commodities is weak, being narrowly
focused only on illegal deforestation and failing to meet international environmental standards. Without long overdue secondary legislation, Schedule 17 remains unenforceable.

We now urgently need a comprehensive due diligence law to prevent the UK becoming a dumping ground for goods made with human rights abuses and environmental harms, and a safe haven for companies unwilling to comply with stronger laws in other countries. The time to act is now.