Since the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (MSA) passed, companies with a turnover of £36 million or above have been obliged to produce an annual statement that details the steps they are taking to address the presence of exploitative practices within any part of their business operations or supply chains.
On the tenth anniversary of the implementation of the MSA, the government issued an updated version of its Statutory guidance on transparency in supply chains. A notable development in this revised guidance is its stronger emphasis on engaging people with lived experience (PWLE) of modern slavery and exploitation, alongside workers, suppliers and relevant civil society organisations, in the development of corporate responses.
This creates a significant implementation gap. While engagement with lived experience is positioned as good practice within the guidance, it remains underspecified in terms of method, safeguarding, ethics and power dynamics. As a result, organisations are left to interpret not only whether such engagement should take place, but also how it can be conducted safely and meaningfully in practice. This raises two interconnected questions: what constitutes meaningful engagement with lived experience in corporate modern slavery governance, and who is authorised to define its boundaries?
Given the centrality of knowledge production to academia, researchers are, of course, always keen to identify a gap and attempt to develop a response. For some questions, however, the academic’s usual toolbox might not be sufficient or even appropriate. The above twofold question is one such example. Producing an answer without consulting the people who have been subjected to exploitation would be to omit the voices of those who the measures are intended to help. And using more conventional data collection methods, such as surveys or interviews, risks being extractive.
What is required, then, is an approach to producing knowledge about how organisations should operationalise engagement with PWLE in the absence of detailed guidance on method and safeguarding. A project led by national anti-slavery charity Unseen UK has aimed to respond to this implementation and knowledge gap by working in collaboration with several major businesses, an academic (first author of this article) and a network of survivor consults. Through a series of workshops, meetings and consultations, the project aims to coproduce practical guidance for businesses on how to identify, understand and respond to modern slavery risk in ways that do not produce – or reproduce – harms.
One of the key ways of achieving this is by positioning lived experience as a form of expertise, rather than a data source to be extracted. Experience therefore becomes central to shaping how knowledge and responses to modern slavery are produced, interpreted and applied. This forms a central component of the method of addressing the gap between high-level policy expectations around engagement and the lack of clear, safe and practical methods for implementing this in corporate settings.
This form of expertise is embodied in the survivor consults working on Unseen’s project, as PWLE of exploitation. They play a central role in shaping how engagement with lived experience should be understood and operationalised. While researchers have long recognised the value of designing methods that draw on lived experience, it is only in recent years that this has been applied specifically to modern slavery. Best practice around how to engage and involve people with lived experience of modern slavery is therefore a burgeoning and important field of knowledge.
In this context, knowledge as expertise is not limited to the disclosure or narration of personal experience. Some survivors choose to give insight informed by how exploitation is experienced at an individual level. But lived experience can also function as a form of analytical and contextual knowledge that does not require recounting personal histories. This may include understanding how exploitation is facilitated through specific mechanisms used to trick or trap people, the failings of corporate assumptions put in place to mitigate risks, or the shortcomings of law enforcement and other authorities. Consequently, there are several issues that must be addressed if experience is to be treated meaningfully as expertise.
To begin with, it is important to avoid re-exploiting people. After all, survivors are being asked to take part because of their expertise, and this means they should be compensated accordingly. It is somewhat common to offer limited renumeration, or forms of payment that place restrictions on how remuneration can be used. While in some cases the latter may be derived from Home Office restrictions for those not permitted to work while they wait for asylum claims to be processed, it is important to discuss the options available with the survivors themselves.
Additionally, if not properly managed, survivors’ input can be tokenistic. This could take the shape of, say, bringing in PWLE late in a project’s development, or even after it has begun and the main objectives and parameters are already set. Doing so would mean PWLE would be unable to help meaningfully shape the project’s aims or methods, or to challenge elements of the project that can no longer be changed. Tokenistic approaches therefore limit the impact PWLE can have on a project, resulting in superficial input.
Trying to incorporate PWLE from the beginning of a research project also presents challenges, especially for funding applications. It is possible – as the first author knows from experience – to be caught in a catch-22 situation, whereby the funder (understandably) requires a full research proposal with specific and well-defined objectives, research questions and projected outcomes, before funding is granted. However, incorporating survivors into the process of research design costs money due to the safeguarding, support structures and remuneration they will require. How, then, is it possible to raise funds to pay for PWLE to take part in research design unless funds are available before the project is fully fleshed out? Doubtless there are some routes available, but including PWLE from the beginning presents a barrier to the conventional process of submitting a funding application.
It is also imperative to avoid retraumatising PWLE. Certain topics can trigger very powerful memories and feelings related to their experiences. Discussing these topics can produce feelings of frustration, anger and loss. It is therefore necessary to make appropriate support available. However, experience also forms the basis of the expertise that contributes irreplaceable value. Emotions that accompany experience can therefore be viewed not as a barrier to engagement, but as a way of enriching and humanising what might otherwise be viewed as a purely technical problem-solving exercise.
Addressing these challenges can result in a win–win for those collaborating on a project of the kind run by Unseen. In contrast to extractive research practices, treating lived experience as expertise enables PWLE to contribute to, and benefit from, the process in which they are involved. Being meaningfully included in projects that inform how businesses understand and respond to modern slavery risk can be empowering for PWLE. Meaningful inclusion is a way of recognising experience as a legitimate form of expertise that carries practical, strategic value. As one survivor consultant put it, lived experience contributes ‘a missing lens to corporate governance’.
While including experience as expertise might be challenging, particularly if experience involves having been through a traumatic experience, the rewards are also clear. Meaningful, non-tokenistic engagement can, and should, create opportunities for upskilling, professional development and progression for PWLE. Projects concerned with producing knowledge or developing solutions gain a form of expertise that only PWLE can offer. Through projects like Unseen’s, the hope is that businesses develop survivor-informed methods of responding to and preventing harm, rather than basing responses on corporate assumptions, and that survivors are given the opportunity to thrive.
Christopher Pesterfield is a Lecturer in Management at the University of Bristol Business School. His research interests are primarily focused on modern slavery, which includes analyses of the management of exploitation risks in supply chains, responses to relevant legislation, and lived experience.
Brandon Thomas has a background in asset management and brings his professional expertise to modern slavery charity Unseen UK’s business team, combining it with his lived experience to drive meaningful change. He began his journey with Unseen in 2022 as a survivor consultant, working closely with the policy and research team to ensure legislation meets the real needs of survivors. He has worked alongside universities across the UK on research projects that have fed into legislation and visited parliament to advise the Home Affairs Select Committee on what recovery should look like for survivors.
Image credit: Hermes Rivera via Unsplash