Property Council of Australia, in collaboration with KPMG Banarra (KPMG) has produced a practical guide for businesses to better identify issues of modern slavery in the property and construction sector.
The report, Listening and Responding to Modern Slavery In Property & Construction: a practical guide for effective human rights grievance mechanism outlines how effective human rights ‘grievance mechanisms’ are a critical component of a good practice response to modern slavery in workplaces.
Modern slavery refers to circumstances in which pressure, trickery, or threats are used to exploit employees or undermine or deprive them of their freedom. This can include human trafficking, forced marriage, forced labour or debt bondage.
“Property and construction business activities can both directly and indirectly impact the lives of many people, especially those hidden deep within complex supply chains,” the guide said.
“Property and construction contracts will often involve multiple tiers of management and international procurement processes that last many years. As a result, collaboration around key topics, such as grievance mechanisms and remediation are more important than ever.”
Property Council Chief Executive Ken Morrison said property and construction supply chains are complex, reaching across Australia and around the world.
“This reach and impact puts us in a unique position to improve people’s lives by addressing the social impacts of what we do, here and overseas,” he said.
“Assessing and addressing modern slavery risks involves enabling staff and suppliers to speak up about human rights, so property companies can make their activities more ethical and sustainable.”
The guide comes off the work started in 2019 with the Property Council of Australia’s Modern Slavery Working Group collaborating to launch the Modern Slavery Supplier Platform. The platform helps engage with thousands of suppliers to understand and report on their actions to assess and address modern slavery risks in Australia and overseas.
Human rights grievance mechanisms are the structures in place to raise, analyse, investigate, and respond to human rights concerns and complaints, which may include issues related to modern slavery.
They provide a safe and easily accessible way for people to raise concerns about the impact an organisation is having on them and can accompany internal policies and processes that enable concerns to be identified and addressed.
The processes can be internal or external to a company, with variable degrees of informality and formality throughout the process.
These processes may include whistle-blower hotlines, ‘speak up’ policies, supply chain hotlines, contract clauses with dispute resolution provisions and engagement with key stakeholders, such as at-risk communities or specific workers.
During 2020 it was identified that grievance mechanisms were one of the priority areas of interest for the Property Council Modern Slavery Working Group members and their suppliers.
Research showed that resources were needed to help understand and communicate how listening to staff and suppliers and encouraging them to speak up about human rights and modern slavery concerns can benefit everyone involved.
This guide is now available through the Property Council of Australia and KPMG Banarra as a collaborative project and forms an important step towards the continuous improvement needed across Australian supply chains to assess and address modern slavery risks.
The guide has been designed to help organisations listen and respond to staff and suppliers in a manner which is equitable, accessible, and trustworthy.
Following the development of this guide, the Property Council’s Modern Slavery working group is turning its efforts to producing resources to remediate cases of modern slavery. Further resources are expected to be published by the end of the calendar year.
You can find the guide here.