Abstract
This article develops a conceptual pattern of the reasons and scope of business responsibility for modern slavery. It introduces modern slavery as either relation or structure and designs an understanding of a broad and a narrow model of business responsibility, consisting of business power, internal and external realms of business conduct and public and private roles of companies. Crossing the two models of modern slavery with the two models of business responsibility, the article carves out the strengths and limits of their junctions. The continuous pendulum between the junctions allows to discuss how and why companies can be responsible for modern slavery. It thus contributes analytically, practically and normatively to tackling modern slavery.
Highlights
Modern slavery1 is one of the human rights violations that are unanimously condemned worldwide
We suggest that only a continuous pendulum between the two can properly address business responsibilities for modern slavery
The on-going debate in both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business and human rights (BHR) scholarship is marked by the controversial question, whether business actors should be seen as mere private, economic actors pursuing private interests, or whether they rather resemble public, political actors with public responsibilities (Scherer and Palazzo 2008, 419–20; Levy and Kaplan 2008, 434; Kobrin 2009; Muchlinski 2001)
Summary
Modern slavery is one of the human rights violations that are unanimously condemned worldwide. In times of global markets, supply chains, production networks and globally intertwined economies, with companies gaining power, resources and agency, states as well as civil society actors increasingly are addressing business enterprises for tackling modern slavery This interlocks with a growing body of research exploring business responsibilities and corporate governance with regard to modern slavery (Fransen and Lebaron 2018; Gold et al 2015; Gold and Schleper 2017). There are other forms of modern slavery that do not clearly fall into this range, such as domestic slavery in private households, restavecs (children given into domestic service), cult and ritual slavery or forced and servile marriage (Miers 2000, 2003; Akurang-Parry 2010; Greene 2009; Lawrance 2010) While those forms may include economic exploitation, for the purpose of this paper, we draw a distinction between business-related and non-corporate exploitation, focussing on the former. This article develops a pattern that contributes to the question of how and why business companies can assume responsibility for modern slavery
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