Anti Slavery

Mobile phones. Clothes. Shoes. Flowers. Wine. Food. Many of the products we buy and use every day are produced by people trapped in modern slavery. Every day, millions are exploited to fulfil our relentless drive for cheap products.

At least 24.9 million people are thought to be in trapped in forced labour worldwide. Of them, 16 million are exploited in the private sector, linked to the supply chains of the international businesses supplying our goods and services.

Slavery exists in all stages of the supply chain, from the picking of raw materials such as cocoa or cotton, to the manufacturing of goods such as mobile phones or garments, and at later stages of shipping and delivery to consumers.

The reality of this is children forced to mine cobalt for use in the latest mobile phones, or women forced to produce coffee for one of our best-known brands. Almost 20% of the world’s global cotton production is linked to forced labour of meaning almost every high-street garment company could be implicated.

In the net of our supply chain, we are working together with all audited suppliers with default of anti slavery initiative and practice.