World Vision New Zealand welcomes the Education and
Workforce Select Committee’s report on the Modern Slavery
Bill and urges Parliament to pass the legislation before the
election with strong cross-party support.
More than
340 groups and individuals submitted on the draft Bill, with
significant support from businesses, advocacy organisations,
and more than 900 handwritten submissions from children who
attended World Vision Youth Conferences.
World Vision
New Zealand’s Head of Advocacy and Justice, Rebekah
Armstrong, says the strong showing of support sends a clear
message.
“New Zealanders want this law. Businesses,
investors, charities, children and communities have all said
it is time for stronger measures to combat modern slavery,
for greater accountability in our supply chains, and for
stronger protection for people, especially children, who are
harmed by exploitation.
“We are pleased the Select
Committee has made some important improvements to the Bill
and, crucially, that it’s retained a clear pathway for the
Bill to become stronger over time.
“Now we need our
politicians to heed the voices of New Zealanders and pass
this Bill with support from across the house before the
election,” she says.
World Vision welcomes several
important features of the bill that have been retained,
including:
- The public reporting
framework - The creation of a modern slavery
register - A three-year review that keeps further
reform including an Anti-slavery Commissioner and enhanced
victim-survivor provisions on the table
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The
organisation also welcomes stronger transparency
requirements, including for businesses to report on due
diligence actions to identify, address, prevent, mitigate
and remediate modern slavery risks, as well as statutory
functions requiring guidance to support
implementation.
Armstrong says the Bill will help
improve supply-chain visibility, encourage better
governance, and give investors, consumers and the public
detailed information about how organisations are responding
to exploitation and slavery risks.
“Reporting and
transparency can change business behaviour. They create
expectations, improve internal systems, and make it much
harder for modern slavery risks to remain
invisible.
“Importantly, businesses will have to
report not only on the modern slavery risks they face, but
on the due diligence actions they are taking and whether
those actions are effective.
“That creates much
greater transparency about what businesses are actually
doing to prevent modern slavery which matters, especially
for children who remain highly vulnerable to exploitation
and hazardous child labour in global supply chains,”
Armstrong says
World Vision is pleased to see a
statutory review within three years included in the
legislation because it provides an opportunity to assess
whether business behaviour and supply-chain practices are
changing.
“Internationally, modern slavery laws are
moving beyond disclosure and transparency alone towards
mandatory due diligence, stronger enforcement, and clearer
expectations for businesses to prevent harm. It’s
important for New Zealand to keep in step with these
developments.
“This Bill does not yet require
mandatory due diligence, but this is an important and
long-awaited step forward.
“New Zealand will finally
have a dedicated framework requiring greater transparency
about modern slavery risks and what businesses are doing
about them,” Armstrong
says.
