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We were approached by a Bank seeking to strengthen its modern slavery approaches across its diverse lines of business. This Bank has retail, commercial, and corporate banking, as well as an extensive investment and wealth management portfolio. They were conscious of a need to upskill staff across a wide range of departments and sought the Mekong Club’s help in order to achieve this. Over time, we built trusted relationships with leaders across multiple different segments of the Bank, which led to exciting and impactful work, including:

– Providing masterclass training to over 500 anti-money laundering professionals during a week-long financial crime risk awareness event.

– Supporting with assigning modern slavery risk ratings to all commercial banking customers (by rating each SIC code classification based on reliable data sets).

– Training for the property & procurement teams on modern slavery risk indicators and supplier risk assessment.

– Providing a modern slavery trend update at their regular internal modern slavery working group meeting.

– Working with the transactions monitoring team to carry out an investigation into modern slavery risk within the agricultural sector, identifying high risk clients and suspicious transactions for escalation.

– Providing training to ESG analysts on how to read a Modern Slavery Statement with a critical eye, to identify which investees are making better progress in addressing modern slavery.

We work with this financial service provider to strengthen their response to modern slavery issues across so many areas, and as part of these we facilitate the linking up of colleagues working on similar issues. This helps with information and best practice sharing and demonstrates the value of collaboration in addressing this crucial topic.

We were approached by a major hotel chain that had hotels throughout Asia.  While they had addressed the issue of modern slavery in their supply chains, they wanted to better understand how to address sex trafficking that could take place in their hotels. They had heard that hotels and motels were being sued in the USA for failing to identify this happening on their premises.  They were concerned that this trend would  begin to happen in Asia.  They wanted to be ahead of the curve and ensure that no exploitation could occur under their watch.

To help raise awareness among the hotel managers, we offered a detailed summary of the issue and its relevance to the hospitality industry.  Two weeks later, we met with representatives from the following departments: legal, housekeeping, security, concierge, reception, and CSR.  During a strategic planning exercise, we came up with a protocol for helping to address suspected sex trafficking cases.

To initiate the plan, a training was done for housekeeping, reception and security staff. They were provided with a set of indicators.  If found, they would be reported to the security department for their follow up.

As a result of this training, the hotel reported that they had identified several suspicious cases. This approach helped them to understand the issue and to offer a viable response to protect their business.

We were approached by an airline that was concerned that their business could be used to facilitate modern slavery. Not knowing where to begin, they invited us to talk to their senior management. This step was needed for them to understand the relevance of this topic to their business.

We were then invited to do a presentation for the general staff. Over 700 people attended this event. Following this presentation, the airline worked with us to develop a public service announcement video and an article that could be used in their inflight magazine.”

We also provided a presentation to flight attendants to offer a set of potential red flag indicators that could be used to identify suspicious situations on-board planes.

Five years after carrying out these efforts, we were invited to the airline to receive feedback. They indicated that our work had helped them to understand the issue. This encouraged them to go beyond sex trafficking to include supply chain vulnerability risk assessments related to their in-flight meal products. The resulting initiatives included them carrying out developing policy statements, risk assessment protocols, audits, and remediation strategies when suspicious situations occurred.

We were approached by an intimate apparel company that wanted to ensure that their products were slave free. Because their clientele is primarily socially conscious women who care deeply about social issues, this topic was very important to them.

We were invited to visit a factory in China. We provided a 1-hour presentation to the senior management staff and a 2-hour presentation to the factory staff. This was the first time the production line had been stopped for such a training. Over 30 questions were asked by the factory employees.

As a result of this discussion, three changes followed. First, a suggestion box was set up to give staff an opportunity to anonymously offer feedback. Second, the audit surveys were reviewed to ensure that the right questions were included to address forced labour vulnerability. Finally, a set of policy statements were developed that could be used for the factory’s suppliers to reinforce their “zero-tolerance” for modern slavery.

Follow up took place two years after the event. What was initially a one-off training turned out to be a regular event that was carried out by the factory managers.