LEO GRC and partner Stronger Together provide a range of eLearning modules on tackling modern slavery. Listen to the new podcast featuring Stronger Together founder, David Camp, to find out more.
What Is Modern Slavery?
Did you know that there are more people in slavery today than ever before? Slavery happens when one person deprives another of their freedom in order to exploit them for personal or business gain.
This can take a number of forms, but our partner Stronger Together, a business-led multi-stakeholder initiative aiming to reduce modern slavery, focuses on forced labor. This is when people are coerced and/or threatened into carrying out work. People in forced labor are not able—or do not have—the freedom to leave.
That might seem like an archaic concept when slavery was officially abolished almost 200 years ago, but this failed to wipe out the practice. An estimated total of almost 25 million people worldwide are still in forced labor situations today, and almost two-thirds of those workers are in private supply chains.
Working to Tackle Modern Slavery
Stronger Together provides training, a strong global network, and several resources to support businesses of any size to reduce modern slavery. Training opportunities include a range of eLearning modules developed with Eukleia, which have been taken by over 36,000 learners.
Stronger Together’s consumer good program is supported by the UK's nine largest supermarkets: Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Waitrose. Stronger Together also runs a construction industry program, and a program tackling forced labor in the fruit and wine producing industries in South Africa.
Responsible businesses have a critical role to play in tackling modern slavery. However, many businesses are not aware of, or are unable to address the exploitation that may be taking place within their operations and supply chain today.
Stronger Together and LEO GRC: Taking on Modern Slavery
During the first of our podcast series with our partner Stronger Together, we speak to David Camp, an expert in labor exploitation issues. In his role as Chief Executive of the Association of Labour Providers and Programme Lead at Stronger Together, David is working at the forefront of supporting businesses with the information and tools they need to take the pro-active measures necessary to address modern slavery,
What began as an initial drive to produce guidance in response to member reports of exploitation has become a much larger and more widespread initiative. Today, Stronger Together works to promote best practices and help businesses of any size to deter, detect, and deal with modern slavery.
What Can Businesses Do to Prevent Modern Slavery?
Often referred to as a hidden crime, modern slavery can be extremely difficult to spot. And the problem isn’t going away. A March 2018 report from the National Crime Agency has revealed that UK modern slavery numbers are higher than previously suspected.
Training and awareness for staff are crucial, and the eLearning tools Stronger Together and LEO have created are a great starting point for businesses looking to address forced labor and make a positive difference.
The range of online training courses includes:
- Tackling Modern Slavery for UK Businesses
- Tackling Forced Labour for Businesses based outside the UK
- Tackling Modern Slavery in the UK – Supervisors
- Tackling Modern Slavery in the UK – Recruiters
Find out more here.
Tackling Modern Slavery: Knowledge Is Power
Training staff to be aware of the indicators of modern slavery is important. In the podcast, David refers to a recent case in which an organization’s work with Stronger Together gave them the ability to spot the signs of exploitation and take the appropriate action necessary to report their suspicions and protect potentially vulnerable workers.
Our variety of modern slavery courses have been taken by over 36,000 people across the world since they were launched to coincide with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
For more, listen to the podcast to discover why modern slavery is such a big issue affecting all of us today, and the simple steps you can take to understand the issues involved. Look out for the next part of our modern slavery podcast series, where we’ll go into more detail about how to tackle the issues around modern slavery.
Listen to the modern slavery podcast here.
Images are screengrabs from Stronger Together training videos.