The Bath research tackling
modern slavery
Millions of people across the globe are working under horrifying conditions. Find out about the work being done in the School of Management to address the problem.
Imagine working exhausting hours in an unsafe environment; for a fraction of minimum wage; or with no access to documents such as your own passport. This is the reality faced by an estimated 28 million people worldwide – victims of modern slavery.
Climate change, poverty, armed conflict and political instability lead to migration, which in turn render people vulnerable and so more likely to become victims of modern slavery. Despite widespread attempts to address the issue, modern slavery remains saddeningly common.
Academics from the University of Bath School of Management are working with stakeholders across government, business and non-profits to prevent, identify and tackle modern slavery – helping to improve employment conditions, protect workers and stamp out human rights abuses.
Providing the right support
What does effective intervention look like? Many actions taken by authorities, while well-meaning, miss the mark according to Professor Vivek Soundararajan and Dr Pankhuri Agarwal. They were part of a research team that spent four months in Leicester, in the UK’s East Midlands, in 2023.
Listen to Professor Soundararajan share some of his research on working conditions on the Research4Good podcast.
Leicester is home to a large cluster of garment factories, which were used as suppliers for fast-fashion manufacturers such as Boohoo. In 2020, many of these factories were found to be a hotbed of labour exploitation, and the UK government stepped in.
Dr Pankhuri Agarwal
Dr Pankhuri Agarwal
The project team carried out interviews with affected communities to explore the aftermath. “Most of the solutions for modern slavery are directed towards shutting down factories, arresting or rescuing workers,” says Dr Agarwal, “but nobody really knows what happens to the workers after these interventions.”
For many, their situation hadn’t improved. While some had found other work, it was largely precarious in nature. Many others remained unemployed. Women, in particular, reported missing a sense of community that had come from their work.
"Nobody really knows what happens to the workers after these interventions."
Instead of forcing factories to close, the researchers suggest investment in developing supplier capabilities to address worker issues.
They also suggest development of community-based solutions at a local level, such as women’s centres, and wider availability of free English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses to enable worker transition into other work – as well as greater attention on the broader social issues around race and gender that render people vulnerable to labour exploitation in the first place.
Their report, What happened after the Boohoo Scandal? A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective of the Garment Industry in Leicester, includes recommendations for brands, community groups and government bodies. It was published in Hindi, Gujurati and Punjabi as well as English, ensuring its accessibility for affected communities.
The report formed part of the Embed Dignity project, a UKRI-funded research initiative led by Professor Soundararajan focusing on how dignity can be built into all levels of an organisation.
“In our research, we are trying to change the way people view working conditions, framing them as a systemic issue rather than isolated problems,” he explains.
Multiple pieces of his research on modern slavery, supply chains and working conditions have also been cited in policy documents by governments, think tanks and intergovernmental organisations.
Professor Vivek Soundarajan
Professor Vivek Soundarajan
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Professor Andrew Crane
Professor Andrew Crane
Shaping government guidance
Policy is, of course, a key mechanism for taking action on forced labour. The UK’s Modern Slavery Act came into force in 2015. It is accompanied by statutory guidance, which advises businesses on how to respond to modern slavery.
In 2025, Professor Andrew Crane worked to help the government revise this guidance around Section 54 of the Act – which covers transparency in supply chains for large organisations.
“The new guidance is an update from the original guidance, which was released 10 years ago. It reflects changes in how businesses have matured in their response to modern slavery,” explains Professor Crane. “A key change is that the revised guidance really focuses not just on how companies can meet the letter of the law in terms of their reporting obligations but how they can meet the spirit of the law.”
Watch Professor Crane talk about the updated guidance for Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act.
Professor Crane is Director of the School of Management’s Centre for Business, Organisations & Society, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2025. He was involved in revising and drafting the statutory guidance, as well as conducting research around it. His research formed a crucial part of the evidence base to support the guidance’s key points.
“What we hope the guidance will achieve is to really push forward businesses in how they’re responding to modern slavery risks. It’s much more than just reporting on what they’re doing: it’s about advancing what they are doing and getting deeper into their supply chains, using the guidance to make a more effective response,” he says.
Professor Crane also acted as co-chair for the 2023 Crossing Boundaries conference, hosted at the University. The two-day event brought together more than 80 academics, practitioners and policymakers working on issues around forced labour and modern slavery from 14 different countries to share the progress they have made, to help one another to enhance the quality of their work, and to forge relationships that will enable them to bridge divides between academic disciplines and between research and practice.
View photos from the 2023 Crossing Boundaries conference, co-chaired by Professor Crane.
Informing public sector practice
The UK public sector is a major buyer of goods and services. Much of the UK public sector’s procurement happens through purchasing consortia, which work on behalf of public sector organisations to ensure value for money.
Every year, approximately £2.6 billion worth of goods and services are purchased for public consumption via purchasing consortia. Much of this money is spent on goods and services where the risk of modern slavery in the supply chain is high, such as electronics.
Dr Johanne Grosvold’s research has identified how public sector purchasing functions can improve how they evaluate and identify risks of modern slavery and concrete steps that can be taken to address the scourge of modern slavery.
Dr Johanne Grosvold
Dr Johanne Grosvold
She partnered with the Modern Slavery & Human Rights Policy & Evidence Centre, London Universities Purchasing Consortium and charity Unseen UK, as well as colleagues from the Universities of Sussex and the West of England.
They carried out more than 70 hours of interviews with public sector procurement professionals in a bid to identify the barriers they face in managing modern slavery and climate change risks in their work, and to develop best practice guidelines to address these.
“We talked to them about what their priorities were, what they think about modern slavery, how they see it as a problem, and the ways in which they are able to – and are finding it harder to – facilitate change,” she says.
The research team compiled a summary giving clear recommendations for public sector procurement departments. These included developing mechanisms to actively manage modern slavery risks, strengthening tendering requirements, providing role-specific training for staff, and increasing the use of purchasing consortia to put pressure on firms to act ethically.
“We talked to [procurement professionals] about what their priorities were and the ways in which they are able to facilitate change.”
The work has been picked up by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), which has sought Dr Grosvold’s expertise on how it can implement modern slavery awareness modules in its courses.
The research was also cited by a UK Parliament Select Committee, and has been used by non-governmental organisations in their lobbying work on modern slavery in public sector buying.
One thing that is evident is that this isn’t a problem we can solve without facing it head-on. Bath researchers are working to bring visibility to the issue – which, as Dr Grosvold asserts, is often mistakenly perceived as “a problem that’s seen as happening somewhere else”.
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