There is growing awareness of the role that multinational corporations (MNCs) play in contributing to modern slavery down their supply chains (8.7 Alliance, 2023). According to Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO), in 2021 there were 27.6 million people trapped in situations of forced labour around the world, with 17.3 million individuals being exploited in the private sector (ILO, 2022). Sectoral analysis of this finding suggests that a third of exploited workers are employed in export-related sectors and are, presumably, part of global value chains (GVCs) (ILO, 2022). The increasing realization, in the last decade or so, that MNCs’ profits are linked to modern slavery has driven workers, their representatives, global and local activists, consumer organizations, and unions, as well as legislators and policymakers at various levels (local, national, regional, and international), to seek innovative and effective ways to hold MNCs accountable and assign them responsibility (LeBaron, 2020; ITUC, 2020; Trautrims et al., 2021).

This trend suggests a shift in policy responses to modern slavery. Since the adoption of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Trafficking Protocol in 2000,1 there has been a predominant view that human trafficking and modern slavery primarily result from the operation of organized crime (H. Shamir, 2012). The expansion of the anti-trafficking and modern slavery policy response towards addressing the role of mainstream business entities, and particularly MNCs, raises multiple complex questions for scholars, policymakers, and activists. These relate to the exact role of MNCs in modern slavery and the practices they adopt, and MNC and supplier compliance (Han et al., 2022); the causes and drivers of modern slavery; the reality of work on the factory floor (and wherever work takes place); and effective policy solutions to change corporate patterns of purchasing, supply chain management, and engagement with suppliers, as well as with workers and their communities.