Bristol business leads fight against slavery

Bristol business are being urged to lead the fight against modern slavery by being the first to submit their Modern Slavery Act statements to a new central repository established by local company Semantrica.  

Companies with turnovers exceeding the government-set threshold are now legally obliged to prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year, according the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Announced by Andrew Wallis OBE of award-winning Bristol charity Unseen and Jaya Chakrabarti MBE of tech social enterprise Semantrica Ltd, the online repository will allow all companies with turnovers above £36m to upload and log their statements – for a fee. It is hoped that this transparency will enable the public to make ethical decisions on who they spend their money with, as well as feeding into Home Office intelligence into trafficking. 

Jaya commented: “It is important to us given the history Bristol had with the Transatlantic slave trade, that we take the battle against modern slavery to the next level starting here in our city. We can’t change our past, we won’t forget our past, but we must also work for a future without slavery.”

It is estimated that more than 35 million people globally are held in slavery, of which 13,000 are in the UK. 

“At least 14 million of the slaves worldwide originate in India. Men, women, children,” Jaya continued. “As an British Indian with little influence in my motherland, this was my way of making up for my ignorance and lack of action in the past.

“We have already had some very high profile companies express their intentions to file with us. With the charitable donations raised by the repository, and the growing support of partners, we will fund the anti-slavery hotline and the battle against slavery using the data provided.”

James Durie, CEO of Bristol Chamber of Commerce said: “Our business community is fully committed to pro-actively working on how we can help raise awareness of the abhorrent slavery which exists today and we are working with Unseen, many other partners and of course the Modern Slavery Act to do all we can to eradicate it. With over 18,000 members in Bristol and across the South West we are determined that business will help to take the lead.”

Andrew added: “What if Bristol collectively took a stand to be the city where modern slavery was not able to exist? This would impact far wider than we may at first realise. It may affect the goods that we purchase, the services we use and the labour we rely on. Modern slavery is in essence a supply and demand trade.

Together [with Semantrica] we committed to achieving this aim, and for Bristol to lead globally on the issue of combating and eradicating modern slavery. By focusing on the future Bristol may be able to finally move on from its slave trading past and by leading the way in tackling modern slavery be able to free itself and move forward.”

To register your intention to file too, register at tiscreport.org.

Image – Jaya Chakrabarti of Semantrica delivering a speech outside City Hall. 

Read more about how Bristol should tackle modern slavery.