Beyond Compliance in the Hotel Sector: A Review of UK Modern Slavery Act Statements
A new report reviews the statements produced by 71 hotel companies under the UK Modern Slavery Act, and USAID Thailand CTIPS reviews victim care models in Thailand.
The travel and tourism industry continues to see uninterrupted growth, with more people than ever before traveling for work or leisure to a broader range of destinations. Yet this growth brings with it a greater risk of modern slavery.
To assess how the hotel sector is responding to these risks, a new report reviews the statements produced by 71 hotel companies under the UK Modern Slavery Act, which requires companies with a turnover of £36 million to release annual statements on their anti-slavery efforts. The research from WikiRate, the Walk Free Initiative of the Minderoo Foundation, and Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reveals an alarming lack of action on modern slavery from the largest hotel companies operating across the world.
The report looks at whether the statements meet the Act’s minimum requirements, but also if they go “beyond compliance” with effective responses to modern slavery risks — including sexual exploitation, forced labor, and the poor treatment of migrant workers. Only one in four of the 71 hotel companies’ modern slavery statements met the minimum requirements of the Modern Slavery Act, meaning that they appeared on the company home page, were signed by a Director or equivalent, and were explicitly approved by the board. Only half of companies produced more than one statement between 2016 and 2019, despite the mandatory requirement to report annually.
Only 8% of hotel companies disclosed that they require employers, not employees, to bear the costs of migrant worker recruitment; only 18% recognized the vulnerabilities of agency or migrant workers to modern slavery, and only 14% reported specific policies to prevent sexual exploitation from occurring on their premises.
The authors joined a panel during the 2019 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights last week, discussing the future of modern slavery legislation while taking stock of the lessons learned from the mandatory disclosure regimes in the UK and Australia. The theme for this year’s forum was ‘Time to act: Governments as catalysts for business and human rights’ to further the engagement of governments, especially from the global South, to meet their duty to protect against business-related human rights abuse.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy updates and news:
Dr. Sandra Morgan, Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University was recently appointed to the White House’s Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking. In a recent episode of the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast, she discusses the purpose of the advisory council, her goals and what it means moving forward.
The USAID Thailand CTIP initiative recently published a new study reviewing victim care models in Thailand and elsewhere and provides recommendations on how to make assistance more responsive to the survivors’ needs.
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