London-based Verisk Maplecroft advises that companies across all industries not only increase awareness of slavery risks outside their doors, but also within.
“The migrant crisis has increased the risk of slavery incidents appearing in company supply chains across Europe,” says Sam Haynes, senior human rights analyst at Verisk Maplecroft. “It is no longer just the traditional sourcing hot spots in the emerging economies that businesses should pay attention to when risk-assessing their suppliers and the commodities they source.”
The chief Asian manufacturing hubs, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand, all feature in the “extreme” or “high risk” categories of the Modern Slavery Index. India and Thailand have shown improvements in their scores, however, because of their better efforts to enforce laws related to slavery.