Kam Phung, Assistant Professor of Business & Society, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University
Despite growing awareness and legislation aimed at eradicating modern slavery — including forced labour, bonded labour and other extreme forms of human exploitation — efforts to combat the issue remain largely ineffective.
The United Kingdom, the first to enact a modern slavery act in 2015, is a case in point. The latest government figures show 5,690 potential victims in the U.K. were referred to the Home Office between April and June. This is the highest quarterly figure since the national referral mechanism began in 2009.
This could be attributed to a multitude of reasons, including an actual rise in exploitation, growing awareness of the issue and more training being provided for frontline services. But the effectiveness of transparency and disclosure laws in achieving substantive change in businesses’ behaviours has long been questioned.
Read more: Ten years after the Modern Slavery Act, why has this 'world-leading' legislation had so little impact?
Canada also has a modern slavery act, Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, which came into effect in 2024. It requires certain private-sector and government entities to report on efforts to prevent and reduce the risk the issues.
Read more: Canada's Modern Slavery Act is the start — not the end — of efforts to address the issue in supply chains
It’s still too early to tell if Canada’s approach has amounted to any real change. However, since its onset, experts have cautioned that such a transparency and disclosure law “falls short of what is required to make large corporations exercise due diligence to prevent labour abuse from occurring within their supply chains.”
Deflecting responsibilities
When confronted with modern slavery risks, some companies justify their inaction or adopt ineffective measures that do little to address the problem.
In a recent book chapter published in the The Routledge Companion to Responsible Business, my co-researchers and I explore three rationalizations used by businesses and professionals to deflect responsibility for addressing modern slavery and other pressing societal issues, even as pressure to do so increases.
Our insights emerged from interviews we conducted with a range of businesses operating in Canada with global supply chains leading up to Canada’s enactment of modern slavery legislation. They represent some, but not all, of the ways businesses deflect responsibilities for addressing modern slavery.
Deflection involves redirecting attention, blame or responsibility away from oneself to avoid taking accountability or confronting uncomfortable truths and negative feelings. Rather than addressing an issue, focus is shifted elsewhere, enabling an organization to get away with inaction or sub-par action that can enable modern slavery.
In everyday organizational life, these deflections can be hard to spot. They manifest in subtle ways, and may sound reasonable on the surface but ultimately serve to sidestep meaningful responsibility.
Perceptual rationalizations
“Perceptual rationalization” occurs when businesses resist addressing modern slavery because they fear negative perceptions and consequences.
In our interviews, some businesses worried that acknowledging the issue might be seen as an admission of guilt, making their company vulnerable to media criticism and public backlash.
To some companies, modern slavery is considered so toxic and stigmatized that they prefer to avoid the topic altogether. In the face of media coverage on linkages to modern slavery, some businesses fear that bringing attention to the issue will become a public relations nightmare.
This is despite evidence that broader society may, in fact, praise businesses for detecting and publicly disclosing such information.
Ironically, this suggests the media’s role as “watchdogs” of corporate behaviour may actually deter some businesses from taking action rather than deter socially irresponsible behaviours.
Read more: Modern slavery is endemic in global supply chains. Companies should be praised – not shamed – for detecting it
Structural rationalizations
“Structural rationalizations” happen when businesses claim that industry factors like regulations or systemic factors absolve them of responsibility.
For example, company representatives in highly regulated industries like transportation argued their supply chains are already monitored and therefore have a “low risk” of modern slavery — despite using high-risk materials like rare minerals, including conflict minerals, in their parts.
Meanwhile, others claimed that modern slavery is a “system issue” that requires government intervention and changes in consumer behaviours, not corporate action.
While acknowledging the systemic nature of the problem is important, we found some companies use this perspective to shift responsibility to external entities like governments, consumers and other businesses instead of taking proactive steps.
In this way, the systemic nature of issues such as modern slavery, and other issues like climate change, may actually be leveraged by some as a way to avoid doing their part to address them. System issues are all-hands-on-deck issues. Everyone needs to be doing their part.
Territorial rationalizations
“Territorial rationalization” was one of the most common rationalizations in our interviews. It occurs when individuals or organizations argue modern slavery falls outside their scope of responsibility, leaving it for others to address.
At the individual level, someone might say their performance indicators don’t include addressing the issue, so it’s outside the scope of their work. At the organizational level, companies may claim the issue is simply irrelevant to them. However, such dismissals are often based on false assumptions or misunderstandings.
Some companies, for example, believe that because their products are high quality goods, they are shielded from the issue despite legitimate risks.
Yet, modern slavery is not confined to low-quality goods. In 2024, for instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo accused Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium of using conflict minerals. Similarly, Italy’s competition authority is investigating claims of worker exploitation linked to Armani and Dior.
Taking ownership means shifting from “that’s not my job” to “how can I help solve this?” while still maintaining reasonable boundaries.
Transforming inaction into accountability
The fight against modern slavery in supply chains reveals a troubling paradox: the very factors that should drive corporate action, like moral urgency and the systemic nature of the issue, often become excuses for inaction and deflection.
Read more: Here's what businesses and consumers can do to tackle modern slavery in supply chains
Progress requires business leaders to embrace accountability within their sphere of influence. The path forward demands three critical shifts:
Business education must evolve to prepare professionals, managers and executives with moral frameworks and practical tools to address systemic challenges. They must be taught to view social issues as an opportunity rather than a challenge or threat.
Companies must resist the temptation to hide behind the systemic nature of problems and instead focus on what they can control and influence.
Stakeholders like leadership teams and regulators must design incentive structures that encourage engagement, not avoidance.
Successful managers and businesses recognize that social responsibility is not about shouldering blame for every systemic issue, but contributing to solutions within their operational reach.
An important first step is being able to spot deflections on the ground, whether it involves you, a colleague or any other stakeholder, and understand how it can perpetuate any given issue.
Kam Phung receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Humanity United Action, and the Ford Foundation.
