LONDON—The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner has published a joint report saying there is a lack of awareness in the financial services industry in relation to issues of forced labor and exploitation of workers.
The report found non-banking areas of the financial industry, such as cryptocurrencies, accountancy firms, insurance and brokering are noted as having particularly poor knowledge of this issue in the United Kingdom, CityAM reported.
According to the report, low levels of awareness are attributed to a potential underlying assumption that because financial organizations are not involved in manufacturing or heavy industry they are not implicated in modern slavery and human trafficking. However, the report argues that finance is at the heart of labor exploitation, whether due to issues of money laundering, international transfers of money or investment choices. The report emphasizes that organizations in the financial services sector have a major role to play in tackling forced labor and modern slavery, CityAM reported.
‘Obligations to Use Their Leverage’
“Financial institutions that lend to invest in or are otherwise linked to businesses whose supply chains are exposed to modern slavery and human trafficking have both due diligence obligations and obligations to use their leverage over their business partners to address these concerns,” the report states.
“The report identifies several ways that financial organizations can take a stand against issues of modern slavery and human trafficking,” CityAM stated. “A key factor is increased involvement by senior leaders to set the tone and to engage and collaborate with relevant external stakeholders. The research behind the report found that 45% of board level employees indicated that they view modern slavery as something which doesn’t occur in the U.K.—which belies the 10,000 people identified as victims of modern slavery who were referred to the authorities in 2019—and 68% of financial services employees said that they did not believe the issue had been raised more than a few times by senior management. By contrast 87% of financial services employees rated modern slavery and human trafficking as an important social/environmental issue.”
Additional Call
The report also called for improved internal communications of policies, reporting procedures and ongoing monitoring activities to help identify and prevent modern slavery as employees needed to know how to report any concerns.
Training was identified as an area of need, to help employees recognize issues of modern slavery and human trafficking. Seventy-one percent of financial industry employees said they had never participated in any form of training on modern slavery issues, CityAM noted.