Modern slavery advisory services
Anti-Slavery International’s bespoke advisory services will help your business or non-profit to move beyond legal compliance, using worker-centred approaches to work towards a world free from modern slavery.
Our business advisory services support businesses to identify the risks of modern slavery in their supply chains and develop meaningful steps to address them. We work with businesses following the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), supporting alignment with the standards outlined in the corporate responsibility to respect human rights.
We always aim to define the approach that is right for your business. We use our extensive experience and knowledge of all forms of modern slavery and overlay this against the issues that you are facing. We take a custom approach tailored to your business.
We will partner with you to undertake ongoing due diligence, adapted to local contexts to help address, prevent and remediate forced labour, and empower workers. We ensure that access to remedy is not a matter of ‘best practice’, but a basic principle in respect of labour and human rights, and the prevention of modern slavery.
Anti-Slavery International is at the forefront of shaping corporate accountability legislation. This means that we can assess the trends that help your business meet new requirements and ensure the protections of workers in your operations. The work that we do with businesses feeds into our advocacy for stronger legal frameworks to address forced labour in supply chains.
Prioritising collaboration
We operate in collaboration, by bringing businesses together and with other CSOs. We also have formal partnerships with a network of CSOs who work to address forced labour and support workers in a number of source countries around the world, such as Bangladesh and Chile.
We have over 180 years of experience working to end slavery at the grassroots level. We understand the changing environment and root causes which allow modern slavery to occur. We use our extensive experience and knowledge of all forms of modern slavery to define the approach that is best suited to your business.
What we offer: Critical friend partnership
Your business or non-profit will benefit from our tailored approach, advising as a ‘critical friend’ to help you to go beyond tick-box approaches to addressing modern slavery. We are able to draw on the knowledge and expertise of our network of civil society, trade unions and businesses to inform strong practice.
Our bespoke partnerships and services include:
- Training demonstrating the realities of modern slavery, locally and globally, and how it can manifest within your business context and supply chains;
- Design of your own in-house training to identify and manage risks within your operations;
- Support developing a strong, clear and bespoke Modern Slavery Statement;
- Develop and implement systems that identify risk factors and monitor deficiencies and actual instances of slavery and trafficking within your supply chains;
- Provide viable and sustainable ways to go beyond compliance, help you to achieve standards of excellence and demonstrate best practice within your sector;
- Provide best practice examples of how businesses within your sector are working to address the risk of modern slavery to inform collaboration or stronger practice;
- Develop your business’ policies and procedures on addressing modern slavery;
- Establish or assess the effectiveness of grievance mechanisms, and access to remedy, through worker-centred approaches;
- Conduct on-site worker engagement to understand salient human rights risks in your operations and supply chain e.g. in your distribution centres; and
- Help you to identify and convene others in the business and civil society communities to add leverage to your activities and scale up positive impact.
Partnership spotlight
ASOS and Anti-Slavery International have been working in partnership since 2017 to address modern slavery risks within ASOS’ diverse and complex global supply chain. The partnership has helped ASOS to improve internal modern slavery awareness and supplier due diligence, and enabled the business to take an industry-leading role in encouraging other businesses and policymakers to tackle modern slavery together.
Anti-Slavery International and ASOS worked with a Mauritian trade union, Confédération des Travailleurs des Secteurs Publique et Privé (CTSP), supported by IndustriALL Global Union, alongside civil society organisations to establish an access to remedy project for migrant workers in Mauritius. The Migrant Resource Centre was opened in February 2022, to reduce the vulnerability of migrant workers to modern slavery. It provides access to information to migrant workers on their rights, a way to raise grievances and support through remediation.
Alice Strevens, Head of Ethical Trade at ASOS, commented, “We are committed to the fight against modern slavery, but we know that cross-sector collaboration is essential to achieving our goals. Anti-Slavery International is the perfect partner in this. It brings years of real-world expertise tackling modern slavery and understands that change across a global business can be a complex journey. In the years working together we have taken positive action that is addressing the risk to the business and also making a genuine difference to people’s lives.”
Go beyond compliance: invest in a partnership that transforms lives
By partnering with Anti-Slavery International to identify, prevent, mitigate and remediate modern slavery in your business, you will be going beyond compliance to strengthen your organisations’ approach to forced labour. We are able to share our expertise on relevant legislation and requirements with partners, including keeping you up to date with key risk areas that should be considered.
You will also be making a long-term commitment to a modern slavery-free future while directly supporting our work to help victims of slavery find freedom today.
Contact us
To find out what we can offer your business or non-profit, please contact Naomi Shirman, Director of Fundraising and Communications at n.shirman@antislavery.org, or Eloise Savill, Private Sector Adviser at e.savill@antislavery.org.