Human trafficking - a form of modern-day slavery that exploits both adults and children around the globe - has flourished under pandemic conditions, where it has become even harder to detect.

According to the Global Slavery Index, there are now more slaves worldwide than ever before. The modern workplace can often become a setting for the staggeringly outdated mistreatment of human beings. The Index reveals that there are 136,000 people trapped in some form of modern slavery in the UK alone.

How can employers help stamp out slavery in the workplace? Personnel Today offers the following key pointers to be aware of:

• When it comes to sourcing employees, most employers will only extend their meticulousness to their immediate workforce and their suppliers’ workers. But what employers fail to realise is that modern slavery can often be embedded further down the labour supply chain.
• As using agents to recruit staff is now so routine, most will be unaware that some agents can be corrupt and unlawful. Agents throughout the UK have been known to strike fear in vulnerable workers through methods such as violence and manipulation, with those desperate for work feeling as though they have no choice but to accept it.
• Modern slavery victims are pushed into a corner they feel is inescapable. This exploitation in the workplace, for example, could even be a case of an employee being made to feel they cannot take their holiday entitlement as they will be more susceptible to redundancy or lose out on promotions. Or, in extreme cases, workers are forced to work excruciatingly long hours for little or no pay.
• In the United Kingdom the most frequently reported victims of modern slavery are Albanian, Vietnamese and UK nationals, with the National Crime Agency reporting that 1,625 UK citizens were in some sort of modern slavery in 2018 – a 50.4% increase from 2017. By sourcing workers from abroad, the number of steps in the labour supply chain significantly increases and so does the chance of corruption and exploitation. International workers face a much higher risk of having their families threatened or passports taken to prevent them from leaving.

Employers only usually focus on the first tier of the recruitment process, which presents applicants keen to impress and succeed. As a result, HR professionals often have a concerning lack of knowledge when it comes to their employees’ true situations and what really takes place in their labour supply chains. If modern slavery is to be tackled, they must extend their considerations beyond office walls.

HR departments are encouraged to help companies build a workplace culture that is protective and dutiful of their workers’ human rights. Modern slavery isn’t always obvious, and people involved in it rarely have the option to speak up and complain. Employers need to ensure that the arrangements they have with their workforce do not fall within any definitions of slavery.

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