World Day Against Trafficking in Persons - Our Commitment

This article will take approximately 1 minute to read

Published 30 Jul 2020 in Raising Awareness

Did you enjoy this post:

Within our Society, we support a number of legislations and activities but one we would like to highlight today is the United Nations World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

Being a Society that looks after our people, places and wider environment, it reinforces our strong commitment against modern slavery which is sustained within our DOES values.

Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires commercial employers with an annual turnover of at least £36 million to publish a ‘slavery and human trafficking statement’ for each financial year, setting out the steps they have taken to ensure that no slavery or human trafficking exists in their business or supply chains.

In the Society’s 2016 / 2017 annual report we stated that "The Society welcomes and supports the Modern Slavery Act. We are fully committed to our core values and our purpose – working towards creating a better, fairer world and to enhance the lives of our colleagues, members, customers, and the communities we serve – and we believe in supporting the responsible and sustainable growth of the Society and our supply chain. Given the size of our business, under Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 we are required to, and shortly will be, publishing a slavery and human trafficking statement."

We issued our first such statement three years ago and have continued to update this on an annual basis. To view our updated Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement SEE HERE

Our statement outlines the steps that the Society is taking and is continuing to take to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain. The core focus areas are awareness raising, supplier engagement, and training and employment.

The Society has made some great progress in helping to raise awareness of this important issue, including our support of the innovative Bright Future Programme providing employment opportunities for survivors of modern slavery, and educating our supply chain on spotting the signs of modern slavery.

What is the Bright Future Programme?

The Bright Future Programme has continued to develop, and we were one of the first organisations to join the Co-op Group in working with Bright Future, a collaborative employment scheme that brings charities and businesses together to create jobs for victims of Modern Slavery. Business partners like us work with a number of local charities to match employers with slavery survivors who are then offered a four-week paid employment work placement, leading to a non-competitive job interview.

The Bright Future scheme has grown to include 44 organisations, who are co-operating to support victims of slavery, including John Lewis, Typhoo, Dixons Carphone and the Body Shop. Within our Society’s ‘Values in Action’ plan we made a commitment to ‘become a founding member of Bright Future Co-operative and ensure employment opportunities for Modern Slavery survivors’. In line with this aim, we recently announced that Bright Future has now been successfully registered as a Co-operative. We are one of the founding members of that Co-operative and our Chief Values Officer, Pete Westall, represents our Society on the Bright Future Board.

To help raise awareness, this week, our Chief Values Officer, Pete Westall, and Dawn Green, Assistant HR Advisor, attended the Bright Future Virtual Summit discussing opportunities to further develop the programme which has so far enabled 63 survivors of modern slavery gain employment.

#EndHumanTrafficking

What else have we been involved in helping to tackle Modern Slavery?

Our activities include:

Following on from our supplier modern slavery awareness event that we hosted last year in partnership with Business in the Community (BITC), we have been working with these specified suppliers to implement changes to help tackle the issue of modern slavery back in their workplaces, resulting in each of these businesses receiving a BITC certificate for completing modern slavery awareness training.
We have reached out to other organisations during the last year to raise awareness of Modern Slavery through a range of events, including our Chief Values Officer presenting to students at Oxford Brookes University about Values and Ethics in Business, and the role businesses must take to help tackle modern slavery. Our Chief Values Office also presented at Business in the Community’s 2019 West Midlands Regional Showcasing Event in Birmingham, raising awareness amongst a range of businesses around the issue of Modern Slavery.

For more information on our updated Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement please SEE HERE