Waging a war against modern slavery

Slavery has been an issue in Australia since colonisation in 1788, when convicts were transported to Sydney. It continues to this day, despite having been outlawed in the early 1800s.

What makes it a scourge today is that forced labour is becoming more common around the globe. If people are pressed into working for little or no pay, then their bosses will pocket higher profits.

It is estimated by the International Labour Organisation that there are now 50 million slaves in the world; about a quarter are children and 22 million are women in forced marriages. The numbers have risen rapidly in recent times.

But large investment groups are now trying to stamp it out, aided by evidence uncovered by the likes of Kim Randle through her company, Fair Supply. She takes a global approach, sifting massive amounts of data reported by public companies, national accounts released by 197 countries and other sources, to provide investment managers with the power to starve the slavery business of money.

Corporate involvement forms part of the enormous pressure for rules on environmental, social and governance practices – known as ESG – to be enforced. Every major global money centre has adopted new standards, and Fair Supply’s job is to collate the mountains of data released by diverse organisations and hold them to account on their obligations.

Randle says that despite the growing number of slaves in the world, there is no concerted action to ban slavery. “There are two schools of thought,” she says. “The first is to do no harm on ESG issues. But there is also an opportunity to have a positive impact by making investment decisions that are planet and people positive. The exciting thing is that listed entities are using our data to quantify their ESG risks.”