'Tackeling Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking at scale through financial sector leverage', Jan 2019

[…] The Liechtenstein Initiative for a Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking was established with a clear ambition: to explore, develop and rapidly scale up meaningful actions the global financial sector can take to more effectively prevent and address modern slavery and human trafficking. […]

This paper aims to lay the foundations for the Commission’s second discussion, in Liechtenstein on 20-21 January 2019, by exploring the role that the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) can play in supporting the ambition of the Commission to push beyond the boundaries of compliance towards creative financial sector action to prevent and address modern slavery and human trafficking. [...]

In the first section of this paper, we explore how the UNGPs are relevant to the Commission’s ambition to prevent and address modern slavery and human trafficking at scale through the financial sector.

In the second section, we share broad observations and specific examples of what implementation of the UNGPs and related efforts by financial institutions looks like in practice today, including leading approaches, recurring challenges and immediate opportunities that the Commission may want to exploit.

In the third section, we conclude with some initial ideas for the Commission to consider as it seeks to identify rapid, meaningful and scalable action by the financial sector on modern slavery and human trafficking, harnessing the potential of the UNGPs. […]