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Kevin Bales' work on contemporary slavery has brought this under‐researched field of social enquiry to the attention not only of the academic world but to a wider global audience through his prolific publishing, his film work and not least his presidency of Free the Slaves, the US anti‐slavery organisation. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of his findings and methodologies currently prevailing in this field.

This paper is based on an interview with Kevin Bales conducted in April 2009 and subsequent discussions with Claire Griffiths.

Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, the book that brought Bales global recognition over a decade ago, reinstated slavery as a key human rights issue on the research agenda for the twenty‐first century. This interview is condensed from a longer discussion between Kevin Bales and Claire Griffiths on researching contemporary slavery. In this conversation they explore the relationship between slavery, trafficking and prostitution, a theme that leads the discussion to the gendered nature of slavery through the centuries. The interview concludes with some indications of where slavery studies research is going in the twenty‐first century.

This paper provides new insights into the emerging and interdisciplinary field of modern slavery studies.

The globalisation of supply chains has contributed to modern slavery by degrading labour standards and work practices. The inherent difficulties involved in monitoring extremely fragmented production processes also render workers in and from developing countries vulnerable to labour exploitation. This research adopts a benchmark methodology that will help examine the inherent modern slavery challenges.

This study examines how the benchmark model, including governance, risk assessment, purchasing practice, recruitment and remedy of victims, addresses supply chain modern slavery challenges. The proposed hypotheses are tested based on the reoccurring issues of modern slavery in global supply chains.

Estimations suggest that modern slavery is a growing and increasingly prominent international problem, indicating that it is the second largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise worldwide except for narcotics trafficking. These social issues in global supply chains have drawn attention to the importance of verifying, monitoring and mapping supply chains, especially in lengthy and complex supply chains. However, the advent of digital technologies and benchmarking methodologies has become one of the existing key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the effectiveness of modern slavery initiatives in supply chains.

This review provides an understanding of the current situation of global supply chains concerning the growing social issue of modern slavery. However, this includes various individual specialities relating to global supply chains, modern slavery, socially sustainable supply chain management (SCM), logistic social responsibility, corporate social responsibility and digitalisation. Furthermore, the review provided important implications for researchers examining the activities on benchmarking the effectiveness of the existing initiatives to prevent modern slavery in the supply chains.

The market for slaves is one of the few cases where trade is banned for moral reasons in every country. While animal activists often link animal production to slavery, they fail to answer the question about why animal production persists in every country, while slavery is banned everywhere.

The purpose of this paper is to show both parallels and differences between slavery and animal production, both from a historic and systematic perspective.

It can be shown that the claim about the many philosophical parallels between slavery and animal production is justified, but that the political economy between the cases differs strongly, particularly regarding the distribution of benefits.

The paper argues that the food industry will play a decisive role in the future of animal production.

The loss of jobs would certainly be an issue if animal production was banned, whereas the labor market effects of abolition were more complex.

While the comparison is not new, this is the first holistic evaluation of it.

Modern slavery, one of the most abhorrent crimes against humanity, is a profitable international business (IB). It often operates in a hidden form in the global value chains (GVCs) governed by multinational corporations (MNCs). The purpose of this paper is to examine why slavery exists in GVCs and what this means for MNCs.

The paper borrows insights from the GVC literature to conceptually link MNCs and modern slavery. Different from the IB literature that predominantly focusses on the MNC as a single firm, the paper emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the MNC value chains and their complexity and fragmentation.

Three factors which help explain modern slavery in GVCs are examined: the complexity of GVCs and the challenges this poses to their governance, the business case for slavery and the conditions that enable modern slavery. These factors, taken together, provide an explanation why modern slavery can creep into, persist and thrive in MNCs’ GVCs.

The argument is put forward for the need for IB scholars to borrow from the GVC literature to help understand why slavery can exist in the GVCs of MNCs. This opens the opportunity for examining the MNC in ways not considered by IB scholars so far.

The paper addresses an issue long ignored in IB research and issues a call for IB scholars to study MNCs in a new way, namely, linking MNCs’ activities with modern slavery.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of evolving developments in international, regional and EU law including the UK and Turkish jurisdictions for the liability of corporate businesses for modern forms of exploitative labour practices described as the modern forms of slavery.

In the first part, this paper outlines international, regional and EU instruments, UK and Turkish jurisdictions in relation to modern forms of slavery. The second part reviews legal frameworks for corporate liability for modern forms of slavery.

Slavery, slavery-like practices or some other exploitative practices are prohibited by numerous international law instruments starting from 1904. Apart from old forms of defined exploitative practices, multiple relevant current exploitative practices, called contemporary or modern forms of slavery exist all over the world. Under various international or regional conventions signatory States have been held responsible for exploitative practices by the international or regional courts or supervisory bodies, yet businesses were largely overlooked as a participating partner in the global movement to eradicate modern forms of slavery. For many years, multi-national businesses have engaged with various voluntary international corporate social responsibility initiatives in response to demands to operate in a socially responsible manner. There is a growing global recognition of the role corporate businesses can and should play in tackling crime and exploitative practices. A number of initiatives at the international and EU level and the introduction of the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, (2010 – effective from 2012), the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, the French Act on Due Diligence of Corporations and Main Contractors 2017 (loi sur le devoir de vigilance), the Australian Commonwealth Modern Slavery Act 2018, the Dutch Child Labour Due Diligence Act 2019, (which is due to come into effect in mid-2022), reflect this recognition.

This paper argues that it is important for companies to use available tools, participate in joint initiatives and advocate for binding international and regional instruments and effective national legislation and action – all aimed at ending business involvement in modern forms of slavery.

This study aims to present an institutional analysis of modern slavery to understand the accountability status for domestic workers in the West Asian context, notably Lebanon. This study also aims to explore how today’s modern age – where Internet technologies and social media platforms are highly dominant – affects modern slavery.

The study is based on conversations and secondary data such as previous studies, Internet websites and media reports published in the West Asian region, especially Lebanon.

The study found a context where different institutional factors are influential with no specific definition of accountability. The context specificities, including the misuse of Internet technologies, contributed to the migrant domestic workers’ precarious life and the absence of resistance and actions from the domestic workers’ side (account holders). Further, weak institutional settings and indigenous cultural factors have contributed to the lack of accountability and responsibility from power holders such as households and employers’ governments.

This study provides insights to researchers and other stakeholders concerned with socioeconomic issues in West Asia. Further, it has a social implication by highlighting the humanitarian problem of marginalised migrant domestic workers traveling from poor African and South Asian countries to West Asian countries and indicating to the broader society’s social responsibility or duty concerning this problem.

This paper aims to investigate the determinants of corporate compliance with the transparency in supply chains provision of the UK Modern Slavery Act. While recent scholarship has described what firms are doing to comply with this Act, no attempt has been made to explain their behaviour.

A predictive model of corporate compliance with modern slavery reporting is tested using secondary data from Financial Times Stock Exchange 350 firms. The model is informed by institutional theory and, in particular, by Oliver’s (1991) insights into the conditions under, which firms respond to institutional pressures.

Compliance with modern slavery reporting is found to be significantly related to firm size, prior social responsibility commitment, network involvement, industry and headquarter base (UK versus non-UK). Other predictors such as media exposure, shareholder concentration and profitability are found to be non-significant.

The focus is on the 350 largest publicly listed companies in the UK. The stances that firms outside of this cohort are taking on modern slavery reporting still need to be investigated.

Compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act varies by industry. Regulators should consider this as a part of risk profiling strategies and follow-up inspection of firms.

This paper provides the first theoretically grounded examination of the organisational and environmental factors that determine corporate compliance with modern slavery reporting.

This paper argues that the closures will cause regressive rather than progressive modern slavery shifts as the necessity of survival prevails over addressing modern slavery risks within supply chains.

In the spring of 2020, global clothing retailers were advised or ordered to close physical stores due to lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic and many supply chains temporarily halted production. This paper explains how pre-pandemic modern slavery advancements will be detrimentally affected as a result of societal lockdowns and apparel retail closures around the world.

Two consequences of lockdowns are highlighted, which will have negative implications on modern slavery progress. These are the exploitation of vulnerable people, which includes higher exploitation of those already involved in modern slavery and increased risk of exploitation for those susceptible to being drawn (back) into modern slavery and; the need for repetition of previous work completed by external stakeholders or in some cases, a better alternative.

The pandemic itself causes friction between immediate response solutions and long-term modern slavery goals.

In response to modern slavery drivers, governments may need to fill governance gaps, to control the power of corporations and to reconsider migration regulation.

The COVID-19 lockdowns and subsequent supply chain disruptions were unforeseen. This paper argues that there are significant negative effects on the developments in modern slavery eradication made in the past 10 years. As businesses struggled for basic survival, the apparel manufacturing sector has been detrimentally affected as upstream labourers are now at higher risk from the increased likelihood of modern slavery violations.

Modern slavery is a humanitarian problem that affects global supply chains. Given the increasing pressures from legislature, consumers and investors, firms have a growing interest in eliminating forced labor and modern slavery from their supply chains. However, the impact of modern slavery on firm performance has not been shown before. This paper aims to investigate the impact of modern slavery allegations on companies’ operational performance. It also looks at the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts with respect to modern slavery.

The authors collect news articles on modern slavery in the global supply chains. The authors use an event study and use a robust matching method to measure the operational impact of modern slavery allegations. The authors also analyze the effects of media coverage and CSR practices on the relationship between allegations and firm performance.

The results show that modern slavery allegations do have a negative impact on performance, but this impact does not last long. The authors also show that strong CSR practices help firms mitigate the negative effect of these allegations.

Because the issue is hidden, as a result limited data, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to retest the proposed propositions in the future.

The paper includes implications for the development of socially responsible supply chains and financial impact.

This paper presents the first empirical research investigating the impact of modern slavery allegations on companies’ operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how horizontal collaboration aids organisations in responding to modern slavery legislation and in gaining a socially sustainable competitive advantage.

Action research has been conducted in the textiles and fashion industry and a relational perspective adopted to interpret five collaborative initiatives taken to tackle modern slavery (e.g. joint training and supplier audits). The primary engagement has been with a multi-billion pound turnover company and its collaborations with 35 brands/retailers. A non-government organisation and a trade body have also participated.

Successful horizontal collaboration is dependent on both relational capital and effective (formal and informal) governance mechanisms. In collaborating, firms have generated relational rents and reduced costs creating a socially sustainable competitive advantage, as suggested by the relational perspective. Yet, limits to horizontal collaboration also exist.

The focus is on one industry only, hence there is scope to extend the study to other industries or forms of collaboration taking place across industries.

Successful horizontal collaborative relationships rely on actors having a similar mindset and being able to decouple the commercial and sustainability agendas, especially when direct competitors are involved. Further, working with non-business actors can facilitate collaboration and provide knowledge and resources important for overcoming the uncertainty that is manifest when responding to new legislation.

Social sustainability improvements aim to enhance ethical trade and benefit vulnerable workers.

Prior literature has focussed on vertical collaboration with few prior studies of horizontal collaboration, particularly in a socially sustainable supply chain context. Moreover, there has been limited research into modern slavery from a supply chain perspective. Both successful and unsuccessful initiatives are studied, providing insights into (in)effective collaboration.