Human Dignity and Integrity

Tackling Modern Slavery in Supply Chains

Slavery exists in all stages of procurement, and as supply chains grow and become more complex, it becomes increasingly challenging to ensure freedom, fairness, and safety in the workplace. This resource will help those who want concrete guidance on how to reduce or eliminate the risk of modern slavery occurring in their supply chains. This guide explores effective standards, risk assessments, audits, corrective measures, and practical advice for engaging with suppliers, as well as a comprehensive collection of relevant tools.

Modern Slavery Act Resources

The Ethical Trading Initiative has compiled various resources to help you understand how your organisation can contribute to the abolition of modern slavery. The website is arranged into six sub-categories including ETI resources such as blogs and training courses; advocacy pieces such as submissions to the Australian and Canadian Governments; guidance and examples, such as a list of published company statements; existing projects, such as the DOL's Child Labor and Forced Labor Program; background research and reports from the ILO, UN, and more; and reports and case studies from a wide range of industries.

Dhaka Principles on Migration with Dignity

Companies around the world depend on migrant labour, and yet these workers are frequently exploited. To ensure they are respected through every step of the recruitment and employment process, the IHRB developed the Dhaka Principles - a set of human rights-based principles to ensure and enhance the rights of these individuals. If you are looking to create a more fair, just, and equitable environment for migrant workers, these ten principles provide a strong starting foundation.

Ending Violence and Harassment in the World of Work

ILO Convention No. 190 (C190) is the first international treaty to recognise the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment. Although it is intended for national governments to implement, ts adoption has implications for business sustainability. The core principles and accompanying video series will be particularly useful for sustainability, legal, and compliance professionals tasked with preventing and addressing violence and harassment in the workplace.

Advancing modern slavery reporting to meet stakeholder expectations

This toolkit was created by GRI and the Responsible Labor Initiative (RLI) to encourage and improve reporting on modern slavery and to support action across the value chain. This toolkit will help change agents to understand why modern slavery has become increasingly important to corporate sustainability reporting, and includes a practical approach for them to report on the issue in alignment with stakeholder expectations. Included are summaries of key slavery-related topics, questions, and concerns; reporting examples; testimonials from reporters and stakeholders; relevant GRI standards guidance; and examples of tools that will facilitate your reporting.

Responding to Violence Against Women: Guide for Companies

CARVE has created this guide to shed light on ways for companies to address violence within the workplace. It includes business practices, recommendations, and policies for preventing and responding to violence against women. This resource will help business managers in particular to identify cases of violence, interact openly and empathetically with those who are suffering, and raise awareness on the subject.

Outsmarting Our Brains: Overcoming Hidden Biases to Harness Diversity’s True Potential

Despite years of good intentions and organised efforts to foster a diverse and inclusive work environment, many companies are still struggling to grow and capture the benefits of fair organisational management. This short guide from Ernst & Young (EY) and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) explores the implications of hidden biases in today's work environment. It explains hidden bias, including how it emerges and manifests, and highlights ways in which it can affect behaviour in the workplace. This resource is a good starting point for identifying and challenging hidden biases when recruiting and promoting, and includes a list of simple questions, tips, and actions for identifying and correcting such discrimination.

Unconscious Bias

Everyone is susceptible to unconscious biases that subtly influence our interactions and activities. In this article, Neal Goodman explains how biases present themselves in the workplace in the form of prejudices and discrimination. By bringing awareness and attention to these issues, employees can be trained to help change their organization's narrative. Goodman presents eleven tips that leaders should keep in mind when developing these programs to better guarantee their success.

Handbook: Addressing Violence and Harassment Against Women in the World of Work

The UN Women handbook on Addressing Violence and Harassment Against Women in the World of Work compiles policies, practices, and frameworks relevant to organizations in the private and public sector across every continent. The information is most useful to actors seeking practical guidelines on implementing preventative measures and solutions aimed at building and maintaining healthy and safe spaces for women.

What Does My Headscarf Mean to You?

Writer, engineer, and social advocate Yassmin Abdel-Magied explains the importance of acknowledging and mitigating against bias to construct a world where equal opportunity is ever-present.

Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

The National Inquiry’s Final Report is a landmark document that reveals that persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada. This report is comprised of truths and testimonies from family members, survivors of violence, experts, and Knowledge Keepers, and culminates in 231 individual Calls for Justice directed at governments, institutions, social service providers, industries, and all Canadians.

This document will help to familiarise you with Indigenous people's context of multigenerational and intergenerational trauma and marginalisation when engaging with, investing in, and supporting their communities and businesses.

Social Auditing and Ethical Certification

This brief from Re:Structure Lab can help you to better understand the shortcomings of private tools and schemes intended to detect, address, and prevent forced labour, as well as how these flaws can be addressed. The brief explores how social auditing and certification can be regulated and reformed to eradicate forced labour, and maps out the ways monitoring tools would need to change to play a meaningful role in promoting labour standards.

Good Practice Note: Managing Risks Associated with Modern Slavery

This comprehensive good practice note from the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and Ergon Associates can help you better understand modern slavery and how to address it within your business. It provides a background on modern slavery, including root causes and its importance to business. It also shares practical information on relevant standards; how to support internal policy development; how to mitigate risks and handle remediation; and how to conduct monitoring and reporting. It also provides a series of tools, including questionnaires, checklists, and resource lists. This guide will be most useful to supply chain management and sustainability teams.

Women's Safety in the Workplace Toolkit Guide

This toolkit from BSR’s HERproject and the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CII-ITC CESD) can help you prevent and address sexual harassment in your operations and value chain. It explains what sexual harassment is, where it happens, five reason why businesses should address it, and the different forms of harassment. It also outlines how to use the toolkit and what it includes, such as training decks for managers, supervisors, and workers, as well as step-by-step guides for creating anti-harassment policies and grievance mechanisms. This resource will be most useful to supply chain management and HR practitioners.

Business: It's Time to Act - Decent Work, Modern Slavery, and Child Labour

Modern slavery is a human rights violation that is alarmingly widespread. This concise guide from UN Global Compact can help you understand the complexities of modern slavery and the role of business in tackling this pervasive issue. The guide provides an overview of five key steps businesses can take to address modern slavery, as well as three steps specifically focused on ending child labour. It concludes with a list of resources to help get you started, as well as a list of key definitions. The guide will be most useful to supply chain managers, sustainability practitioners, and human rights specialists.

Child Labour Guidance Tool for Business

The International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation of Employers created this resource to help you understand and address the risk of child labour in your operations and supply chain. It introduces the issue and explains how it may be relevant to your company; explains how to meet the UNDP’s due diligence requirements; and outlines practical steps companies can take in relation to developing policy, taking action, and communicating performance. This guidance is intended for Sustainability, Human Resource, and Procurement and Supply Chain professionals, and especially those working in the extractive and agricultural sectors.

Combating Forced Labour: A Handbook For Employers and Business

This handbook produced by the International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation of Employers will help you address the risk of forced labour and human trafficking in your operations and supply chain. It consists of a series of seven booklets, offering practical guidance to prevent and remediate these issues. It includes an FAQ reference guide for employers; a set of guiding principles; a compliance assessment checklist; concrete tips for taking action; and a set of case studies. These booklets will be most useful to Sustainability, Human Resource, and Procurement and Supply Chain teams, and may be especially relevant to social auditing practitioners.

Base Code Guidance: Modern Slavery

This guide from the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) can help you better understand modern slavery, why businesses have a responsibility to address it, and how they can take meaningful action to end it. It explains the root causes of modern slavery and outlines four steps for applying the ETI Base Code on modern slavery. These include assessing the risk of modern slavery; identifying actions and leverage points; mitigating risk of modern slavery and remediating harms; and monitoring, reviewing, reporting. This practical guide will be most useful to supply chain management and sustainability teams.

Establishing Fair Recruitment Processes: An ILO online training toolkit

In cooperation with the International Labour Organisation, the REFRAME project has created a comprehensive series of interactive, modular training materials and manuals on fair recruitment to support the development and implementation of fair recruitment practices. The modules can help you to understand why fair recruitment matters; monitoring and enforcement of recruitment regulations; and business and private sector engagement for promoting fair recruitment.

Migrant Worker Management Toolkit: A Global Framework

This flexible toolkit from BSR can help you better manage migrant worker issues across diverse business contexts. It is based on a three-step framework for developing a comprehensive migrant worker orientation program. This framework includes understanding the key issues and risks affecting employers and workers in your business context; finding a credible, independent external organisations to support the development of the orientation program; and building capacity within operations by educating workers on their rights and available grievance mechanisms. This highly practical toolkit offers relevant standards, examples, checklists, questions, and recommended actions for each step, and will be most useful to supply chain practitioners and facility managers.

Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage

This comprehensive report can help you to better understand the extent of modern slavery within the global economy, as well as trends related to forced labour and forced marriage. It also provides an overview of key actions required to protect citizens and workers.