Introduction
This Modern Slavery statement outlines Coventry City Council’s commitment to being an ethically, environmentally and socially responsible organisation.
Coventry City Council is committed to preventing modern slavery and human trafficking in all its forms throughout our operations and supply chains. We recognise our fundamental responsibility to respect human rights and to ensure that we take a robust approach in tackling these issues which have no place in our organisation or the communities we serve.
This statement reflects Coventry City Councils commitment to the UK Governments United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, outlining our approach to identifying, preventing, and mitigating modern slavery risks.
This Modern Slavery statement is for the financial year 2025 to 2026 and meets the requirements of Section 54 Transparency in Supply Chains of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
1.1 Definition of Modern Slavery
Modern Slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. It takes various forms (as defined by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority) such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person’s liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain.
Modern Slavery includes a range of types of exploitation, many of which occur together. These include but are not limited to:
- Sexual exploitation: survivors may be forced into prostitution, pornography, or other sexual services for little or no pay. They may be deprived of their freedom of movement and subjected to threats and violence.
- Labour exploitation: a survivor is made to work with little or no pay and may face violence or threats. If they are foreign nationals, their passports may be confiscated by their exploiters, and they may be made to live in terrible conditions and under constant threat.
- Criminal exploitation: survivors can be forced to participate in a range of illegal activities including pick pocketing, shop lifting, cannabis cultivation, county lines exploitation and other activities. The Modern Slavery Act provides a defence for survivors who have been forced into criminality.
- Organ harvesting: survivors are trafficked in order for their internal organs and bodily tissue (typically kidneys or the liver) to be harvested for transplant.
- Domestic servitude: survivors work in a household where they may be ill-treated, humiliated, subjected to exhausting hours, forced to work and live under unbearable conditions or forced to work for little or no pay. In some cases, forced marriage can lead to domestic servitude.
Further information about modern slavery and exploitation can be found on the Council’s website.
