Modern slavery in your shopping basket

Saturday, 5 October 2024

The sad truth is there are no guarantees that all the products on the shelves of supermarkets and other shops are free from the taint of modern slavery.

The largest Australian, UK and European companies are required by laws in the countries they operate from to publish modern slavery statements.

These can be eye-watering reads, full of corporate language, but they give insights into the modern face of slavery and companies’ increasing efforts to eradicate it from their supply chains.

New Zealand has put on “pause” the introduction of modern slavery reporting laws, but many of the biggest brands and retailers are covered by overseas laws put in place by countries with a greater focus on global human rights.

There are no guarantees

Woolworths is considered by modern slavery experts to be one of the more progressive companies when it comes to trying to eradicate modern slavery from its supply chain.

Words like “aim”, “aspire” and “ambition” pepper reports. Woolworths’ 2025 Sustainability report says: “We will work together with our suppliers to build a rights respecting culture where modern slavery risks can be identified, managed and mitigated.”

Mondelez (owner of Cadbury) says its “strategy targets our ultimate vision to collaborate with others to help work toward a cocoa sector that is free of child labour”.

Wesfarmers is a power in Australian and New Zealand retail. It has an enormous global supply chain for its Kmart and Bunnings stores.

Supply chains are extraordinary, and complex

Nestlé's 2023 modern slavery report for Australia and the UK. Notice the absence of New Zealand in the title. That's because this country has put its modern slavery reporting laws 'on pause'.

Wesfarmers’ latest modern slavery reporting says the company, which owns Bunnings and Wesfarmers, has nearly 31,000 suppliers. It runs an “ethical sourcing programme”, and in 2024, it said 4563 of its suppliers were in it. Wesfarmers’ monitoring found 233 breaches of its standards. But its suppliers had their own suppliers (which it calls tier 2 and 3 suppliers), some of which Wesfarmers was unaware even existed until it started looking. In its 2023 modern slavery statement, it revealed that in the 12 months preceeding, its deep dive into its own supply chain identified “a further 1031 tier 2 and tier 3 processing facilities, including spinning mills, fabric mills, laundries, dyeing and printing facilities”.

Mondelēz says it is trying to make a positive impact on the lives of cocoa farmers.

They use the language of ‘risk’, ‘education’ and ‘mitigation’

Nestlé is involved with some of the highest-risk commodities; cocoa, palm oil, hazelnuts and sugar. “By educating our suppliers on the issue of modern slavery and the work we are doing with Unseen, we hope to encourage and inspire them to pursue a similar journey within their own organisations and with their own suppliers,” it said in its latest modern slavery report from 2023. It also said: “Child labour is particularly prevalent in the cocoa-growing sector. Therefore, we prioritised efforts to mitigate these risks in our cocoa supply chain.”

There are clear gaps

Mondelēz sources cocoa from around the world. In its 2023 modern slavery report, it said approximately 85% was sourced through Cocoa Life, a programme designed to: “to make a positive impact on the farms, communities and environments” where its key ingredients were grown. However, it said only 75% of Cocoa Life communities in West Africa were covered at the time by a child labour monitoring and remediation system. By 2025, it aimed to have 100% of the West Africa Cocoa Life-covered farms and communities monitored.

Look and you will find

In its 2023 report, Woolworths said: “Last year we disclosed our first identified case of modern slavery in the form of debt bondage at a supplier site in Malaysia. The workers had paid ”excessive“ recruitment fees and security bonds that placed restrictions on freedom of movement.

Different approaches to remedies

Woolworths got some nods of approval at September’s Responsible Investment Association of Australasia conference in Auckland for its “remediation” work. The temptation for companies is to blackball suppliers that abuse workers. Experts say that risks the workers not getting things like back pay, and conditions not improving. In the case above, Woolworths ensure 230 workers had the recruitment fees paid back to them. It was not a small amount of money: A$734,000, or nearly A$3200 to some of the world’s lowest-paid workers. Payments also happened when it discovered some of its contracted trolley collectors in New Zealand were being short-changed on KiwiSaver and holiday pay. By contrast, when one farmer supplying Fonterra exploited migrant labour, he was simply ejected, and the company’s slavery reporting did not mention any efforts it made to get the workers paid. In its 2023 slavery reporting, Wesfarmers said: “Bunnings worked with 235 supplier sites to remediate more than 1400 non-conformances identified via ethical sourcing audits.”

Reporting laws are driving change

Reporting laws are driving change. In 2023, Woolworths did only its second set of forced labour risk assessments in its trade supply chain for own brand suppliers in food and non-food. Wesfarmers’ said in 2023, “for the first time”, its corporate office reviewed each reportable breach reported by the divisions against the International Labor Organization (ILO) forced labour indicators. These included “instances of debt bondage, lack of freedom of association and reports that could be classified as intimidation and threats”. These may constitute indicators of forced labour.