Connection Diagnostic and Risk Mapping

First, let’s identify ‘heightened’ risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in your own operations or business relationships.

This is sometimes called identifying the ‘scale’ of these risks.

Does your business operate in locations or contexts where the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking are especially high? Or do other businesses associated or linked to yours operate in such locations?

For example: isolated worksites, prisons, refugee and displaced-persons camps, or in communities affected by conflict or political violence?

Is your business associated with high-risk products or service categories?

For example: high-risk business lines can include cantinas, ship salvage, artisanal mining, domestic service agencies, manufacture of branded non-resale goods or specific commodities.

Is your business linked to high-risk entities? Have you examined sanctions lists, government reporting registers, civil society research publications or media reports?

Are there high-risk labour or recruitment arrangements in your business operations, or in the operations of businesses with which you have a relationship?

For example, they might rely heavily on foreign subsidiary or third-party labour brokers, or migrant or refugee labour. They might not provide employment contracts in workers’ native language, or wage inflation may not keep pace with general inflation.

Does your business operate in a market or value-chain with high-risk factors?

For example: where purchasing power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of businesses, where the supply-chain is highly fragmented, or where market demand for low-skill labour is volatile.

If you answered ‘Yes’ or ‘It’s possible’ to any of these questions, you may be facing a situation of high-scale risk. Whatever your answers, though, the next step is to consider three other factors: scope, remediability and likelihood.

The three types of factors to consider are:

• the scope: how many people might be affected?
• the remediability: to what extent can the harm be remedied (e.g. repayment of illegal recruitment fees), or not (e.g. permanent physical harms)?
• the likelihood: how likely is this harm to come to pass?

The higher the concern in each case, the greater priority these risks should be given.

Your answers to the questions of scope, remediability and likelihood will help you map the most ‘salient’ risks. They give you a starting point.

But when you do identify risks to people connected to your business, how are you expected to respond?

That depends on the nature of your connection. Let’s explore that.

There are three types of connections between businesses and people at risk of modern slavery or human trafficking:

• causation;
• contribution; and
• linkage.

Under the international standards set out by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, different responses from business are expected in each case.

Let’s start with causation. Are the activities (the things you do) or omissions (the things you don’t do) of your business sufficient on their own to result in modern slavery and human trafficking?

For example: is it possible that janitorial, landscaping or cleaning employees in your own business could be working under conditions that amount to forced labour?

Or, for those companies that provide credit, is it possible that the repayment terms could amount to debt bondage?

In that case, your business may ‘cause’ modern slavery or human trafficking. You should:

a)  cease the activities that produce this result; and
b)  provide effective remedy for any harm that has been caused.

Now let’s look at contribution. Do your activities combine with those of a third party or parties to cause modern slavery and human trafficking?

Do your business’ activities combine with those of another business in a way that may generate modern slavery or forced labour risks?

For example your business might:

• be part of an infrastructure finance consortium where a project is being built using forced labour, without any of the project parties having undertaken effective due diligence; or
• have control of another business that uses forced labour, through a private equity active management relationship.

Is your business encouraging or motivating another entity to cause modern slavery and human trafficking?

For example, in a business relationship, are you providing financing for another entity that is known to use forced labour, or rely on it in its supply chains, without taking effective measures to address these practices?

Examples might include:

• financing sovereign entities that use forced labour in agricultural harvests or infrastructure construction; or
• continuing to bank a business that shows signs of using forced labour, without taking steps to engage the business to prevent and mitigate these risks; or
• failing to report evidence of modern slavery or human trafficking crimes possibly committed by a client that you identify through an internal investigation.

In that case, your business may ‘contribute’ to modern slavery or human trafficking. You should:

a)  cease the activities that produce this result,
b)  use or increase your leverage with the other party or parties involved to get them to do the same, and
c)  contribute to effective remedy for any harm that has been caused, proportionate to your contribution to the harm.

The financial sector touches nearly all industries and a broad array of businesses. Are the operations, products or services of your business linked to modern slavery and human trafficking in some other way?

Examples could include:

• You use IT hardware that is revealed to have been manufactured with forced labour.
• You trade commodities, some of which may have been extracted or produced through modern slavery.
• Your institution has a joint venture with another organization. In a separate project, that partner contributes to forced labour.
• One of your bank tellers spots signs of human trafficking during client interactions but does not know how to report it.

If your business’ operations, products or services are linked to modern slavery and human trafficking harms, you should:

a) use or increase your leverage with the other parties involved to get them to prevent and mitigate these risks; and
b) consider how you can enable the provision of an effective remedy, including through taking system-level action.

Depending on whether your business is causing, contributing to or linked to modern slavery and human trafficking risks, it will face different response expectations. This often requires building and using leverage, and providing and enabling remedy.

You may need to seek specialist guidance to meet these expectations.

FAST offers a number of other resources and initiatives that may be useful:

• Explore how other financial sector organizations are building and using leverage
• Learn about the FAST Survivor Inclusion Initiative
• Learn about the FAST Vulnerable Populations Initiative

That’s a start! Working together, actors in the financial sector can help to end modern slavery and human trafficking.