Slavery resources

This briefing by The Anti-trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG) and Hope at home “Safe Homes” analyses some of the obstacles and gaps in support potential and confirmed survivors of modern slavery in asylum accommodations face when evicted because of becoming eligible to apply for social housing.

Briefing for the Universal Periodic Review Pre-Session 47 (2024).

At Qatar’s last Universal Periodic Review in 2019, it received 52 recommendations related to the protection of migrant workers, supporting 39 and noting 13. Yet Qatar demonstrated a weak record of implementing recommendations, including on existing worker protection laws on recruitment fees and wage theft. As a result, migrant workers continue to experience significant rights violations – including discrimination, forced labour conditions, and exposure to serious health risks. Combined with barriers to freedom of association, migrant workers face intimidation, threats for reporting violations, and lack remedy and access to justice. In construction, hospitality, security, and domestic and care work, workers report abusive workplace conditions, particularly related to exposure to excessive heat without proper occupational health and safety precautions. Despite Qatar’s initiatives with the ILO to streamline grievance mechanisms and strengthen labour inspections, rights violations remain largely unchecked.

This briefing aims to give an updated overview on the situation of non-statutory First Responders in their ability to refer potential survivors of modern slavery into the NRM in the 6 months between December 2023 and June 2024. The analysis has found an ongoing capacity issue affecting non-statutory First Responders, which are under considerable pressure. This is having detrimental consequences on survivors of trafficking and modern slavery, who are experiencing delays to access identification, support and protection.

To fulfil its commitment to eliminate forced labour from global value chains, the UK must introduce
import controls on products tainted with forced labour. Anti-Slavery International calls on the UK
Government to introduce primary legislation to ban the import of goods tainted with forced
labour. The ban should cover products made (in whole or in part) or transported using forced
labour. This briefing document outlines the rationale behind this call, as well as the elements that the
proposed law must include.

Anti-Slavery International is campaigning alongside the Corporate Justice Coalition and other organisations to make the case for a new Business Human Rights and Environment Act (BHRE).

We have published a policy paper with an overview of the rationale behind our legislative call. We outline the UK’s current lack of mechanisms to hold companies accountable for a failure to prevent abuses, the need to level the playing field between businesses, as well as the urgency for guaranteeing access to justice for victims of corporate abuses. We also provide a series of recommendations to ensure the UK plays its part in addressing forced labour in value chains. This includes both the principal elements of the BHRE Act and a wider mix of additional measures.

Note this policy paper was updated in July 2024.

This is a summary of the report ‘Assessing the Modern Slavery Impacts of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022: One Year On’, based on research conducted by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) in partnership with the Human Trafficking Foundation (HTF) and the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG). The project was funded by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (Modern Slavery PEC) through its Commissioned Research mechanism.

The Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The views expressed in the summary and the full report are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Modern Slavery PEC or AHRC.

As Companies, Trade Unions, Civil Society Organisations, Certification Organisations and Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives, we stress the need to have clear and effective provisions on remediation in the EU Forced Labour Regulation.

A letter, on behalf of the 33 undersigned civil society organisations and trade unions, to outline key issues that should be considered during the upcoming trilogues in order to make the proposed EU Forced Labour Regulation (FLR) a success.

As the world continues to experience the devastating impacts of climate change, a full transition away from the fossil fuel economy is imperative. The solar and electric vehicle (EV) industries in particular, are critical to this transition. However, both industries have been heavily implicated in forced labour in the Uyghur Region, where the Chinese Government is systematically persecuting the native Uyghur and Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples. A central element of this persecution occurs through state-imposed forced labour. 

Coordinated global action is needed to shift solar supply chains away from the Uyghur Region and prevent the solar and EV industries from becoming any more reliant on the Region than they currently are. A truly just transition from fossil fuels cannot be achieved as long the current reliance on the Uyghur Region remains. 

With this objective in mind, Anti-Slavery International partnered with the Investor Alliance for Human Rights and the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University to publish a series of reports to support key stakeholders in the clean energy transition to address forced labour of Uyghurs and other Muslim and Turkic-majority peoples in the production of green technology: 

1. For Investors: Respecting Rights in Renewable Energy Investor guidance to mitigate Uyghur forced labour risks in the renewable energy sector. This Guidance provides investment professionals with the tools to identify, exclude or engage businesses linked to human rights violations against the Uyghur people from their green energy portfolios. This Guidance also explores how investors can re-channel investments into companies which champion sustainability, innovation, and supply chain resilience.
   1. An accompanying annex to the Investor Guidance 
2. For Governments: Respecting Rights in Renewable Energy: Supporting Investment in Sustainable and Ethical Green Technologies: A policy brief to the UK Government. A coordinated and comprehensive response from governments and international institutions will be critical to helping investors and industries operationalise the changes necessary to shift the landscape of green energy production. As such, this policy brief includes recommendations on legislative and regulation actions to the UK Government to support a shift of clean energy supply chains away from the Uyghur Region. Although targeted to the UK Government, this policy brief includes recommendations which are applicable to other governments.

3. For all readers: “Respecting Rights in Renewable Energy: Addressing forced labour of Uyghurs and other Muslim and Turkic-majority peoples in the production of green technology”. A summary of our findings and recommendations across the project. 

You can also read our blog explaining the research, core recommendations and considerations for a just transition. 

The project was funded through an open call for proposals by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (Modern Slavery PEC), which in turn is funded and supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). 

Photo credit: Peter Chou Kee Liu. Creative Commons license.

As the world’s largest single market, the European Union (EU) has an enormous opportunity to demonstrate global leadership in designing its instrument to address forced labour in corporate supply chains. This analysis by Anti-Slavery International and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights argues that a lower evidentiary threshold should be set in proposed EU Forced Labour Regulation.