Modern slavery continues to exist within the fabric of today's economy, often overlooked in complex supply chains and underregulated sectors - even in developed markets like the UK.
The term "modern slavery" reflects the uncomfortable reality that, despite legal prohibitions around the world, severe forms of exploitation persist today - often hidden in plain sight. It serves as a reminder that these abuses are not confined to history, nor to distant places or only the most vulnerable. In many cases, individuals are trapped by economic hardship, coercion, or lack of viable alternatives. Modern slavery is a stark contradiction in our globalised, rights-based world - and addressing it requires vigilance, accountability, and collective action across sectors.
Modern slavery takes many forms, including forced labour, debt bondage and domestic servitude. It often involves individuals being trapped in exploitative and sometimes dangerous conditions through threats, deception or coercion, leaving them unable or too afraid to leave. These abuses are frequently enabled by gaps in legislation, lack of enforcement, and limited public awareness. Certain industries are particularly exposed to these risks - such as agriculture, manufacturing, automotive, fashion, and consumer services like car washing and nail care - largely due to their reliance on migrant, temporary or informal labour, where basic protections can be lacking or overlooked.
In the UK, the construction industry has come under scrutiny in recent years. "Construction often involves multiple layers of subcontracting, which can obscure accountability and make it easier for exploitative practices to go unnoticed", says Siobhan Archer, Global Stewardship Lead at LGT Wealth Management.
The introduction of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015 was a landmark step that placed the UK at the forefront of efforts to address labour exploitation. However, while the legislation was ground-breaking in scope, enforcement and follow-through have not always kept pace. In the years since, compounding factors such as Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis have created conditions in which exploitative practices can persist.
For example, the end of free movement with the EU has contributed to labour shortages in sectors dependent on low-paid or seasonal work, prompting employers to look further afield for workers - sometimes without the systems in place to ensure proper protections. "These individuals often face steep upfront costs to access jobs, such as recruitment fees, visa charges or travel expenses, making them more dependent on employers and more susceptible to exploitation", adds Archer, who last year helped lead a roundtable event on modern slavery in construction in London, co-hosted by LGT Wealth Management, the Cabinet Office and CCLA Investment Management.
In a major recent case that was stopped in motion by a Metropolitan Police investigation, dubbed Operation Cardinas, an organised crime group had made millions of pounds by placing up to 500 victims into large commercial and residential construction projects across London and south-east England. Victims were paid as little as GBP 18 a day - or sometimes nothing - for months of labour while being crammed into unhygienic properties where they were fed rancid meat.
Thirty-three unwitting companies - a fraction of the number investigators believed were hoodwinked by the operation - paid millions of pounds to fake accounts set up by the gang. The firms included building contractors as well as agencies and payroll providers. In cases like these, legislation has not been enough to deter such criminals. "While the UK may have strong laws on paper, resource constraints and limited proactive inspections mean that abuses can still flourish in the margins", Archer says.
Even on sites where the main contractors arrive with good intentions and practices, smaller subcontractors can fly under the radar in a fragmented industry where workers are often transient. "There are a high number of relatively low-skilled and low-wage roles and a high number of migrant workers fulfilling these roles, some with a limited right to work", said Dr Martin Buttle, Better Work Lead at CCLA, following the roundtable event. "There is also widespread sub-contracting with many different workers moving on- and off-site during the project lifecycle, which can add complexity to monitoring efforts." He continues to summarise the three main reasons why he observes that the construction industry is particularly vulnerable to modern slavery: the large number of low-skilled roles and migrant workers, and the wide-spread subcontracting with different workers moving on and off site.
Construction companies themselves have a responsibility to end the suffering of workers, however far down the supply chain they may be trapped. Industry leaders in the UK including Balfour Beatty, Kier and Mace attended last year's roundtable event in support of the issue. While these firms are not consumer-facing, they are part of the collective looking to address the urgency of the problem and the need for greater awareness.
Another example, Marshalls, a UK buildings material and infrastructure firm, has partnered with the Crimestoppers anti-crime charity in a "#slaveryonyourdoorstep" campaign. They provide training for drivers equipped with dashcams and reporting tools. In one case just a day after the launch of the scheme, police were able to respond to a suspected slavery case based on such surveillance. Marshalls also added a whistleblowing hotline to some of its vehicles and site signage.
These schemes, as well as industry-wide initiatives including the Supply Chain Sustainability School and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority's work in construction, are not purely driven by ethical concerns; investors have started to demand improvements. As Buttle put it earlier this year: "Modern slavery is a moral outrage and an investment risk… wealth managers can play their part in helping tackle this issue."
Yet Buttle has described how a shortfall in regulation is failing to adequately incentivise investors, including wealth managers, to demand transparency on exposures to modern slavery risks. Investment portfolios, for example, are not included in the UK's modern slavery laws or the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Meanwhile in March 2025, the House of Lords discussed a report highlighting concerns that the UK was now falling behind its commitments a decade after passing its landmark anti-slavery law.
Partly with plugging this gap in mind, CCLA launched "Find it, Fix it, Prevent it" in 2019, a coalition that has now grown to include investors managing more than GBP 15 trillion. It helps companies address their supply chains through corporate and public policy engagement, and by developing better modern slavery data for investors. It is supported by the Modern Slavery Benchmark, which CCLA launched in 2023 for investors, ranking the UK's largest listed companies by their contribution to tackling modern slavery in their operations and supply chains - and disclosing it publicly.
The Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) initiative launched by the Liechtenstein government is committed to a responsible financial sector that makes a significant contribution to eliminating slavery and human trafficking worldwide by 2030. LGT Private Banking has supported the initiative since its launch in 2018.
Identifying the scourge is the first step, and in its first year, the benchmark revealed that more than a quarter of companies had found modern slavery in their supply chains. Progress has been frustrating at times - and in particular in construction, which has ranked in the lower tiers of the benchmark's scorecard. "While companies were compliant with the law, they were not taking effective steps to actively tackle exploitation in their organisations and particularly in their supply chains", said Dame Sara Thornton, the former Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and the UK's Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner.
Buttle said earlier this year that, whatever the regulatory landscape now looks like, companies increasingly have no choice but to take meaningful action on an issue that affects thousands of victims. "Indeed, not doing so can leave them exposed to questions from investors", he said. "On the other hand, it enables them to demonstrate their diligence to those investors concerned about sustainability and social issues."
