Flags
Source
Comments
"Assessment of Modern Slavery risk within
our supply chain
In the past year we have increased our focus on Modern
Slavery within our wider business operations, and the supply
chains of our goods not for resale, including the formation of
internal governance structure on Modern Slavery and Human
Rights at both operational and leadership levels; Human
Rights Practitioner Committee and our Human Rights Director
Steering Group.
We have mapped our supply chains to assess particular
industry/sector and geographical risk. These assessments
cover the entire scope of our business, encompassing Retail
Operations, Property, Logistics, HR, IT and International, as well
as product supply chains. We have worked with external experts to undertake a detailed risk analysis of our sourcing countries and product areas so we have a clear idea of where the biggest risks lie and where our actions can have a positive impact. Further detail on how we carry out our human rights risk assessment is included in our Human Rights report.
In terms of understanding our greatest risk, there are well
known reported instances in the food Industry of forced or
trafficked labour, ranging from Eastern European workers in
the UK meat and poultry processing industry to enslaved
migrant workers several tiers down the shrimp supply chain in
Thailand. Our human rights risk assessment process has also
highlighted the possibility that in service industries, particularly
construction and procurements of goods not for resale there
could be potential for workers to be put at risk of forced
labour. In the clothing industry India arguably represents the
biggest risk, because the apparel industry encompasses many
different sectors such as cotton, ginning and spinning mills and
manufacturing sites. Turkey also has increased in risk given the
significant number of foreign migrants.
This has enabled us to prioritise our supply chain due diligence
on Modern Slavery, which has included working with leading
experts on visits to second and third tier sites in our supply
chains in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines and
working with GLA to carry out due diligence assessments of
non-food suppliers."