Respecting human rights and preventing modern slavery toolbox

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. They include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination. They also include the right to fair treatment and respect in the workplace. 

If a company causes or carries out a violation of human rights, that is direct abuse. And if a company is forced into violations because of the laws of the country in which it is operating, that is direct abuse too.

A company can also indirectly violate human rights. This is often referred to as being "complicit in an abuse". It is usually the result of someone in a company's network of business relationships committing abuse, like a supplier, third party - or even a customer.

Adverse human rights impacts happen when something removes or reduces someone’s human rights.

A human rights impact assessment (HRIA) is a process for identifying, understanding, assessing, and addressing the adverse effects of a business project or activities on the human rights of workers and community members.

Modern slavery is an umbrella term, encompassing human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced labour. Someone is in slavery if they are:

• Forced to work through mental or physical threat

• Unpaid or not paid in line with the other workers on site or in line with the local minimum wage

• Owned or controlled by an ‘employer’ usually through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse

• Dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’

• Physically constrained or have restrictions placed on their freedom.

Modern slavery is a serious and brutal crime in which people are treated as commodities and exploited for criminal gain. Modern slavery, in particular human trafficking, is an international problem with victims entering one of the countries in which Serco operates legally, on forged documentation or illegally.

Slavery is the severe exploitation of other people for personal or commercial gain. The slave owner has absolute power over the slave and controls them through the use of violence or threats, or by forcing them into inescapable debt, or by taking away their identity papers and threatening them with deportation if they do not do what they are asked.

Any work done in harsh conditions for low pay may also be slavery.

Human trafficking is when men, women and children are moved and forced into exploitation. The movement could be international but also within the country, from one city to another or even just a few streets. A person is a victim of human trafficking even if they have not yet been exploited but have been moved for the purposes of exploitation.

A trafficker may trap people using violence, deception or coercion and then exploit them for financial or personal gain. This can include being forced into sexual exploitation, labour, begging, crime, domestic servitude, marriage or organ removal.

When a person is forced or coerced to work against their will, and someone else benefits for their labour, that’s involuntary servitude. It includes:

• Any scheme, plan or pattern that’s intended to make a person believe that if they don’t work then they or someone else would suffer serious harm or physical restraint.

• The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process. This might include debt bondage, forced labour or slavery.

When a person is forced to work to pay off a debt, that’s debt bondage. They are tricked into working for little or no pay, with no control over their debt.

Most or all of the money they earn goes to pay off the debt, but the debt continues to grow, so the person in bondage has to continue to work. 

A victim is made to work with little or no pay and may face violence or threats. If they are foreign nationals, their passports may be confiscated by their exploiters and they may be made to live in terrible conditions and under constant threat.

Victims can be forced to participate in a range of illegal activities including pick pocketing, shop lifting, cannabis cultivation, county lines exploitation and other activities. The Modern Slavery Act provides for a defence for victims who have been forced into criminality.

For example benefit fraud, where benefits are falsely claimed by perpetrators on behalf of their workers; bank accounts being opened in a victim’s name but used by perpetrators; or workers’ wages being paid directly into the exploiters, own bank accounts by companies who think they are paying a worker individually.

Victims may be forced into prostitution, pornography or lap dancing for little or no pay. They may be deprived of their freedom of movement and subjected to threats and violence.

When people are forced to work against their will, under threat of punishment or violence, or any kind of threat, or through the abuse of law, that’s forced labour. It’s an extreme form of exploitation and slavery, and there are millions of adults and children around the world working in such conditions.