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Pulling a thread

Pulling a thread: unravelling the trail of modern slavery in the fashion and textile industry

This project was funded by the British Academy (Funding Reference: TS170074) and aimed to explore how the UK Modern Slavery Act (MSA) 2015 influences global fashion supply chains.

The MSA requires businesses that operate in the UK and have a global turnover of more than £36 million to clarify in an annual public statement what steps they have taken to understand and to reduce the risk of modern slavery in their operations and global supply chains. The fulfilling of this obligation for large and powerful businesses that dominate the UK high street is not simple or straightforward in practice. Reasons for this can be found within the Act and in how businesses operate.

The Act obligates businesses to make an annual statement but is rather vague in its precise requirements of the nature of such statements. Our research to date has shown that typically Modern Slavery statements do not report:

  1. The prevalence of modern slavery within an organisation’s supply chain in both absolute numbers and relative to the workforce employed and thus the level modern slavery risk
  2. A definition or visibility of supply chains considered in the risk assessment
  3. External third party verification of the information collated and provided
  4. Modern slavery in essential supply chains, yet not core to the focus of the organisation (for example, security, cleaning and catering services).

The omission of such information and the inconsistent coverage makes it difficult for policy makers, let alone the wider public, to understand the origin, extent and implications of modern slavery in supply chains. If we consider the omissions as reflective of the level of knowledge businesses have about modern slavery, then this would further suggest that businesses have incomplete information about the modern slavery situation in their supply chains; or simply are unsure as to how broadly and deeply they should investigate their supply chains.

The MSA defines supply chains as how they are ‘commonly understood’. Our research specifically explores the definition of supply chains and it is clear there is no commonly understood conceptualisation of such. While it is possible to map a supply chain for a particular product or category of product, mapping the whole supply chain for an organisation or sector is very complex due to its diversity, its constantly changing structure and an inherent tendency for opaqueness.

In stage 1, we collected and analysed the modern slavery statements of businesses operating in the British fashion and textile sector. The analysis of statements for 300+ companies was used to assess to what extent firm comply with the Act (both by letter and in spirit) and to inform the following stages.

In stage 2, we interviewed brands operating in the UK to understand their view of the Act and to secure access to their global value chain.

In stage 3, we interviewed businesses along the Indian value chain down to the cotton farms as well as key stakeholders in Vietnam.

Read more about the project outcomes on the Business School website.