Eliminating Modern Slavery from Projects

Summary

Modern slavery involves the recruitment, movement, harbouring or receiving of people through any means for the purpose of exploitation. It is an extensive problem and one that causes immense human suffering. International Labour Organization figures suggest that there are 24 million victims of modern slavery or forced labour around the world at any one time, with a substantial proportion of these working on project-related activities.

Modern slavery causes reputational risk to organisations from the perspective of customers and investors. In the UK, it is now subject to specific legislation. The damage and costs of legal action and compensation to victims of modern slavery can be crippling. Projects are particularly susceptible to modern slavery as they have complex flows of materials and labour that need to be constantly reinvented for each unique project context.

The report will be of interest to project professionals and organisations involved in practical project delivery, academics and researchers engaged in modern slavery and multi stakeholder initiatives or research and for professional bodies amongst others.

This subject was also the topic of a webinar in Summer 2020 involving presenters from WMG, Sir Robert MacAlpine and HS2.