Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being here. It's it's a real pleasure to be part of visiting researcher with the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business. So my name is Kyla Raby and I'm from the University of South Australia in Adelaide, in in Australia and soon the University of South Australia will actually become Adelaide University.
We're going through quite a significant merger with another University of Adelaide in our state. And so as of 1st of January we've become Adelaide University, but it's a real pleasure to be here. I'm here in person with you because of very fortunate to receive a scholarship from the University of South Australia because it is a partner university with Lancaster University. And so, it's really great to be able to kind of continue the partnership that I believe was established quite a long time ago. So, I'm going to be talking to you about my PhD research. But before I do, I'd just like to acknowledge that I come from the lands of the Kaurna people in South Australia and to pay my respects to eldest past, present and emerging. And you might notice that this kind of map of Australia before it is a indigenous Australia map and the circle that I have in read is where Adelaide is on the lands of the Kaurna people. I think we have some people joining from online from Australia as well. So just to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands that that'll be dialling in from today as well. So, before I get too much into my research, I just wanted to tell you a little bit about myself, so I am I'm not sure if you use this term in the UK. I've heard it for the first time in Australia a couple of weeks ago, but I'm a pracademic so I am new to the area of academia, but I have a long background as a practitioner in the humanitarian space. So, I've worked for the best part of the last 15 years for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement with various components of that movement. So, I've worked for the British Red Cross here in the UK about 10 years ago leading asylum seeker and refugee support programmes across the middle of England. I was deployed with the British Red Cross to Greece as part of the European refugee crisis and I was supporting victims of survivors and people on the move migrates on the move through Europe as part of that response. And I've also been deployed with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society to Bangladesh in Cox’s Bazar, the world's largest refugee camp. And as part of those roles, I've been working with vulnerable groups and communities, including people who've been trafficked. And my most recent role with this relevant cross and I've held for about six years in the Australian context, was leading a Survivor Support Service and National Survivor Support Service called the Support for Traffic People Programme, which, if you're familiar with the NRM here in the UK, is the Australian equivalent to that so.
This is the background that I come from and I guess it's. I think it's important to disclose that because it's how I approach my work. I really come from perspective thinking about what does modern slavery look like in communities? How does that impact people? How did the laws and the policies that we develop in response to this issue actually make a difference to the people who are being exploited? So I have a real passion for thinking about how research can help drive policy, better policies and better laws, and and vice versa. How experience from practitioners can help drive better research.
So when in my role at Australia Red Cross, I actually moved from the UK back to Australia in 2018 in the November and about 3 weeks later Australia passed our Modern Slavery Act. Now I've been living over here in the UK when your Modern Slavery Act was passed in 2015, so I was quite excited to see Australia do something similar and there was a lot of celebration in a sector that the Australian government had taken such a big step to, you know, for the first time, really look at regulating modern slavery in global supply chains. However, very quickly, within a couple of weeks I be given that my role at this young Red Cross was as lead for human trafficking and forced labour and forced marriage.
I was quickly brought into conversations about how the organisation was going to respond because even though the Red Cross is an NGO, they had, their method reporting threshold and therefore was a reporting entity under the Modern Slavery Act. So all of a sudden I went from, you know, developing very and leading and managing, you know, casework services and very operational projects to having conversations about supply chains and it was the first time I've ever really had conversations about supply chains and I learnt very quickly that actually implementing the Modern Slavery Act in a way that would have meaningful impact
was going to be very challenging because of the legislation itself. So, this is what really sparked my interest in the Modern Slavery Act and looking at it from a research perspective.
So just to give you a bit of a quick context on Australia's Modern Slavery Act, if you're not familiar with it, it is a reflexive, non-punitive transparency focused law. So essentially, we took your Section 54 from the UK Modern Slavery Act.
And we decided to ignore the rest of the UK Modern Slavery Act, so our Act does not have criminal penalties. It does not have any survivor support initiatives. It is entirely a transparency in supply chain legislation. It also didn't, when it was passed back in 2018, did not have an anti-slavery Commissioner, that was only just added last year through an amendment, so it it really functions quite differently to your legislation, but essentially was really inspired by that Section 54 of the UK Act.
We do also have, of course, other criminal laws that do exist around human trafficking and slavery offences that have been around for the best part of the last 20 or so years, and we have a whole other kind of realm of legal frameworks around Fair Work, Migration, Family Law that have relevance to the subject matter of exploitation of people in Australian context. So that's just a very whistle stop tour of kind of legislative environment and but just to say that Australia's Modern Slavery Act at a commonwealth level is the first piece of legislation that is ever being designed to target the exploitation of people in the context of global supply chains. So, there is another piece of stack-based legislation we have a Modern Slavery Act out of New South Wales level as well, but this is the first kind of commonwealth, you know, federal piece of the world.
So now just to kind of think about more the the problem of modern slavery. So, you would have seen in the title of my presentation, I'm using this word problem in quotation marks because I guess what I want to stress is that the way that we represent problems in law and policy has a big impact on the choices that we make in response. However, we often jump straight into solving the problem mode without really carefully thinking about the way that the problems are represented. And so my research really focus on on this concept of how we represent problems in law and policy. There's also often a disconnect between the problem that policy makers propose to solve and what the problem is represented to be within that law or policy.
So through my my research, I use a framework that's developed by another South Australian academic, Carol Bacchi, and who has developed this framework for unpacking specific representations of problems called ‘What's the problem represented to be’ WPR?
Excuse me. So WPR is a post structural approach to critical policy analysis, and I think it can be really helpful to unlock new ways of thinking about complex policy issues like modern slavery.
However, analysts from very different fields, so from criminology, from health, from business, have really been using this WPR methodology to critique policy and legislation in a whole range of fields. So it's a very diverse and I guess very, very it can be used in lots of different contexts this methodology.
Without giving you too much detail about it, I'm just going to just give you a very quick overview of what it looks like, because I think it's important to give you that context for how I've used it in research. So, I used WPR as a systematic methodology for analysing and then for disrupting the problem representations that are implicit in Australia's Modern Slavery Act. This is essentially what the WPR methodology is made-up of, of six different questions. I'm sorry, there's a there's actually an updated version with seven questions, the 7th bang of a reflexive one asking you to apply this list of questions to your own problematisations, but essentially you know it's called. What's the problem represented to be? Because that is the first kind of kick off question in this methodology that then helps you dig deeper and think about, how did this come about? What are the underlying assumptions that this, this problem has? What is left unproblematic? Where are the silences and how can it be thought about differently? So, this is what I've done in my research. So just to get more familiar with this concept of problematization, I'll just tell you that a core proposition of WPR is that what we propose to do about something indicates what we think needs to change and hence what we think is problematic. So, the way that this translates in reality is that, for example, if training courses are offered to women as part of a policy to increase their representation in better paid occupations or in positions of employments. The problem is actually represented to be audience lack of training. So … So, you can see why I guess this applying to a really basic example, how it really kind of splits the thinking about well actually is this an effective policy or not? And essentially what the policy proposes to do as a solution if you reverse that, it tells you what the policy represents as the problem.
So now let's apply that to Australia's Modern Slavery Act. So what is the problem represented to be within it? So, this is directly from the legislation, the simplified outline of the Act is that the Act requires entity is based or operating in Australia, which have an annual consolidated revenue of more than $100 million to report annually on the risks of modern slavery in the operations and supply chains and actions to address those risks. Other entities based and operating in Australia may report voluntarily.
So this is from Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act, so essentially the Act suggests that large revenue generating entities, disclosing information about their practises is the solution. Therefore, the Act represents the problem and the lack of information about business activities.
So Bacchi in her methodology encourages you to dig deeper once you kind of uncover a surface. You know, representation of the problem. And in Australia's Modern Slavery Act, this information has a purpose. It has an intention. There's an intended audience for it.
So a specific aim of the Act is to assist consumers to make more informed decisions when using, buying and selling goods and services. This is from the explanatory memorandum of the the bill that became the Modern Slavery Act.
And then in in when in when the government was introducing the bill, the Minister who was responsible for introducing it, explained that businesses that failed to take action will be penalised by the market and consumers and severely tarnished their reputations.
So essentially, this suggests that more informed and ethical consumer behaviour is a core part of the Act's proposed solution, and therefore uninformed and unethical consumer behaviour is a core part of the problem. And that kind of leads you to the title of my presentation.
So, is that OK how does that work as a policy? And and sorry, I've got a few quotes as well that kind of reiterate how these perceived problem and solution is meant to work in reality. This is from again the Minister who introduced the legislation. He said this increased transparency will create a level playing field for large businesses to disclose their modern slavery risks, so this concept of level playing field you're probably very familiar with it. You've heard it in the UK context, and it was really used as a core justification for this particular regulatory solution.
And also this concept of a race to the top so the Minister went on and explained: “critically it will also drives a race to the top as reporting entities compete for market funding and investor and consumer support”. And finally, another quote from the explanatory memorandum producing one slavery statement may also have a positive impact on consumers purchasing when consumers choose to buy from businesses seen as ethical. So, these are just like 3 quotes from you know, I think about 160 policy documents that I looked at in analysing this problem representation that kind of demonstrate how this would perceive.
So what is not part of the Act’s problem representation? What is, you know, left as unproblematic as Bacchi would say essentially the Act representation of the problem, and uninformed and unable consumer behaviour due to a lack of information about business practises frames modern slavery in global supply chains as a market problem instead of a criminal issue. So, this is very different from all of the other legislative, legislative and regulatory interventions that the Australian Government has implemented in relation to the exploitation of people. So, for example, the criminal frameworks that I showed you earlier.
Yeah.
It also this subsequently produces businesses that's what I've called non offenders so rather than businesses being the perpetrators of exploitation of workers in their supply chain, they become non offenders. They become actually one of the entities that's in need of regulatory support. So, it suggests that businesses need this legislation in order to create that level playing field, that's you know that fairground. so that one business is not getting an unfair advantage by using slavery and exploited labour. So however, it suggests that businesses rather than the exploited workers are the ones that are in need of this this law.
It also requires consumers, as opposed to businesses change their behaviour so it it it there is there may be an sorry unassumed behaviour change through the concept of transparency in my business, but the actual intentional behaviour change that the Act envisions is through consumer behaviour, not not by business. It also deflects the capitalist economic system and global systems of labour and production from the problem frame. So, these things become not not part of of the problem.
So what are the underlining assumptions behind this? Obviously, there's a there's a range of neoliberal principles that this this is being built on, so the dominance of neoliberalism as a political rationality and form of governmentality is really evident in this thinking.
Non-interventionist and free market principles as well as principles of responsibilisation are are evident. I think what's really interesting as well is that there is an assumed correspondent view of knowledge. So, the Act assumes that the increased information about business practises which is generated by the reporting environment will correspond with truth and therefore it'll be valuable to consumers in their acts of self-governing. However, it doesn't account for the complexity or the usefulness or not of this information, or the different ways in which diverse community consumer groups may receive and respond to it.
The Act also doesn't contain any penalties for non-disclosure or for misleading disclosure, or it doesn't take any steps to qualify the information in any in any way.
So, how did this Act… how did this problem representation come about? That's one of the kind of core questions in the WPR methodology that I showed you at the beginning, and it's a part of the research that I had done. As I mentioned, I looked through a total of hundred and sixty-two policy policy documents to to kind of trace back the development of this problem representation starting from the legislation itself, so starting from the text of Modern Slavery Act and then working my way back. So I've I identified three key Australian parliamentary inquiries that occurred between 2012 and 2017 that were really fundamental, fundamental in shaping the the ultimate.
Modern Slavery Acts that came to be, then it led me to obviously your legislation in the United Kingdom, your UK Act in 2015 and then also beyond that back to the California Transparency and Supply Chain Act from 2010. Now in this process really some of the kind of key findings about how this problem representation came about was that advocacy from the private sector as well as political power power really ensured that the MSA's regulatory approach aligned with corporate interests and avoided alternative policy choices which involved, for example, stricter corporate human rights due diligence requirements, independent oversight.
For example, like I said, there was no antislavery commissioner role built into our legislation, there was no independent oversight and there's no punitive penalty. So our Act contains no financial penalties or other types of penalties for non-disclosure or non-compliance.
So you could see this trend of the political the private sector advocacy the whole way through this, tracing through the parliamentary inquiries to the UK Modern Slavery Act as well as through the the California, the development of the California legislation.
The also I so in looking at the way that Australia was inspired by the UK legislation and the California legislation I've drawn on on a concept from from policy studies around policy transfer and I've actually made the argument that a process of problem representation transfer occurred between Australia and United Kingdom. So in each jurisdiction its adoption was facilitated by neoliberal governmentality which enabled the state to signal a commitment to human rights without disrupting major corporate interests. Now, instead of the actual policy being transferred, it was the problem representation because our legislation looks quite different to yours as I've mentioned around, you know the the the functions of your holistic legislation has many different sections and many different purposes.
However, the the rhetoric and the representation of the problem is the same as as was in your Section 54, and I think just a few of these points from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was the California State government state governor, sorry in 2010 at the time that the California government passed their Act.
You can see, he says, this legislation will increase the transparency, allow consumers to make better, more informed choices and motivate businesses to ensure its main practises through the supply chain. And then Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister in 2019, when the UK government announced the development of the state register. She said this register is really important so that we can all see exactly which companies are serious about stamping out abuses and which should be avoided by consumers with a conscience. So that uninformed and unethical consumer behaviour is again part of the the representation of the problem that the policies, the laws are being proposed to solve.
So what is in my…. in my research I'm I'm arguing that this problem representation needs to be disrupted and changed, so why am I doing that? Why am I saying this? Is this is wrong and it's because of the effects of this so Bacchi suggests when thinking about effects of problem representations. To think about them in in three different ways. The first category, she says, is to really think about discursive effects. So a study of discursive effects shows how the terms of reference established by a particular problem representation set limits on what can be thought instead and.
So in the Australian context, through the establishment of a discursive field which champions transparency as the solution, the Act’s problem representation has limited alternative or additional government action to address modern slavery. Now this is there's many examples I could speak to about this that I've included in my research, but just one is from the review of the first three years of the Modern Slavery Act. So there was a statutory review undertaken independently by Professor John McMillan, and it looked at the the functioning of the the Modern Slavery Act in its first three years of operation.
One of the major findings of this was that a fundamental criticism of the Act is that a transparency mechanism is, at best of, limited valued, and at worst, inherently flawed. However, whilst noting this the the the review then went on to say this is out of scope essentially for this review because we're not considering whether or not transparency is an effective regulatory solution to modern slavery of global supply chains. What we're doing is assessing whether or not the current transparency framework is effective, so, or how it can be tweaked. So, the Macmillan review, as I'm sure some of you've already read, made 30 recommendations about how to increase a transparency mechanism, it really didn't consider is a transparency mechanism effective in itself. So, this discussive field really has limited that. Another example is that we actually had a piece of legislation passed in one of our Houses of Parliament a few years ago that proposed to amend the Customs Act to ban the importation of goods made of forced labour into the Australian market, and unfortunately you didn't pass our second House of Parliament because the government at the time decided they would prefer to stick with a transparency model of regulation and that Modern Slavery Act was sufficient. Even though there's been so much research and evidence just to say that modern slavery is such a complex issue that it requires a whole multitude of regulatory responses in order to address it effectively. So, another one of the categories of effects that Bacchi encourages WPR analysts to think about is around subject subjectification effects.
So Bacchi and her colleague Goodwin, who does a lot of work on this theory with her, they suggest the need to consider how subjects are implicated in problem representations and how they produced as specific kinds of subjects. So, the Act’s problem representation produced the citizens as neoliberal subjects who are rational beings with a moral accountability for modern slavery. So, this subjectification of consumers really deflects responsibility for preventing modern slavery away from businesses and it puts also deflects responsibility for regulating business activity away from the state.
There's also a lot of research around consumer engagement, awareness of modern slavery that that that suggests that this is not the case, that we're not neoliberal, you know, more citizens and some of my own research around consumer engagement. So, I'll talk about a little bit later on also challenges this moral accountability that that is assumed consumers will have.
So I think the the third category of effects and the one that I I think is incredibly important to highlight is is the lived effects. So as a analytical category, a category considering lived effects ensures that the way in which discussing the subject patient effects translate into people's lives forms part of the analysis.
So, I think essentially what we've seen in the Australian context and I think it would be fair to say it's quite similar in the UK context that the Act’s problem representation really fails to prevent the exploitation of workers in global supply chains. I think one of the most I guess significant pieces of evidence to to support this is that the Macmillan Review found that there's no hard evidence that the Act has caused meaningful change for people living in conditions of modern slavery. It has also created the potential for consumers to be to be deceived through, you know what.. what is known as slavery washing. So, greenwashing in the environmental movement. But you know, businesses being able to talk about what they're doing to prevent ethical, so to to prevent worker exploitation and whether or not that is actually true, you know has has been a a big conversation in this other context.
So given all these things, this is…. this is why in my research I argue that the Act problem representation really does need to be disrupted and replaced, and I make the case for how we can do this based on Bacchi’s methodologies. So should I actually really suggest that engaging perspectives which were silenced through the creation of dominant problem representations can really help to destabilise and disrupt them. So, in that analysis work that I did around looking at all the policy documents through the development of Australia's one side react to those 3 parliamentary inquiries, there was two really significant silences that that I found at no point in time did the policymakers ever choose to engage people with lived experience of modern slavery. So, workers didn't go to supply chains. There was organisations who put forward as a secondary stakeholder the views of workers, but no workers would directly engaged. There was also no consumers directly engaged in this process. Again, there was one or two organisations, I think out of I'd say.
60 or 70 that were able to represent consumer voice, but really there there was no direct engagement with consumers or even research around consumer perspectives. So in my research I've decided to engage these two groups to to find out their perspectives on on the Modern Slavery Act and I undertook a survey with 1068 Australians, which is weighted to be a representative sample, and I did this in partnership with choice, who's a consumer engagement agency in the Australian context. I then also undertook a digital focus group discussion with individuals with lived experience of modern slavery.
So, with experience of exploitation in a commercial setting for labour exploitation in the commercial setting, and I did this in partnership with the Australian Red Cross.
So, just to share with you some, some some initial findings from this, this is the part of my research that I'm really kind of digging deep in at the moment, but I can share some high level findings around what with consumer perspectives. So there was some really significant things that stood out around awareness, understanding and value. So, the majority of Australian consumers have not heard of the Modern Slavery Act. There is 35% of consumers reported having never considered whether slave or child labour had been used in an item that they purchased. Now flipping that that means 65% had, which I think is is a good thing. However, we had some quotes that are, oh this one, sorry.
One person saying I've read that there's currently more studying on Earth now than ever before, so there was some indication from some consumers of a level of awareness. But then we also had this quote here that some some people kind of really challenging that assumption that consumers have a moral responsibility for modern slavery, so this point saying neither child or slave labour is inherently unethical. While it is often usually performed unethically in an exploitive way, there's no real reason why it could not in principle be done ethically by the right people. So I think this, you know, is is a very different view, but you know it shows that that assumption that moral that consumers hold this moral accountability and responsibility for modern slavery is not necessarily a a broad assumption that you can apply to everybody, but also I think this this last statistic that I have on this slide about the levels of awareness of how worker exploitation occurs in consumer products changes significantly depending on the products. So for example, 69% of consumers identified clothing as a product that came to mind when they thought of …thought of worker expectation and I think we all know things like the Runner Plaza collapse in Bangladesh and the really, really the incredible efforts of lots of advocates in the fashion industry to raise awareness of modern slavery welfare especially in that industry, seems to be really working based on that statistics. Whereas only 1% of consumers identified solar panels is coming to mind, when we know that there's really extreme risks of labour expectation in particular
forced labour from the weaker population means that the development of solar panels. So noting that this assumption around consumer behaviour change that is embedded in the Modern Slavery Act, applies to all reporting entities, whether they're consumer facing or not.
And and whatever industry that they're in.
So some of the other kind of findings from this research around consumer purchasing behaviour so consumers consider the reliability, price, environmental sustainability and quality of product service more than they consider ethical sourcing and manufacturing and the welfare of employees that make the product and provide the service.
Now this is aligned with other research that's kind of very found, very similar outcomes that there's many more competing priorities on a consumer's purchasing behaviour and that unfortunately often unethical considerations, whether that's workers or environmental both are not top of that list.
So the simple quote someone saying I choose the product with best bang for my back and not most longevity. Consumers are also reported in this survey as being more likely to avoid purchasing something due to ethical concerns they're to seek out an ethical brand. So again, this assumption that's in the legislation that consumers will go and support ethical brands from what the research is saying is actually consumers are more likely to boycott a brand if they think that it hasn't done the right thing. And also I haven't actually got a slide about this, but in our focus group discussion with workers with lived experience, they did actually report while looking at two modern slavery statements that when a entity had disclosed higher risks of one slavery, they reported choosing to boycott that one because they assumed that because the other entity hadn't disclosed those risks, but they didn't exist. So, it almost had the opposite effect that the intent that the legislation intended on, you know, report self-reported consumer behaviour.
So, however, here's his statement by a consumer saying everyone should boycott businesses who take advantage of their workers. Another key thing that came out was around what consumers who consumers perceive are responsible. So consumers really say it's primarily primarily the responsibility of governments to ensure products and services sold in Australia are not made using using exploited workers and 80% believe that Australian businesses should be legally required to know to ensure that they know what they sell is not made from slaves or child labour. So a couple of quotes, “I believe it starts with big guns not allowing it before it ever goes to the consumer”.
And “there should be a tax on businesses who offshore work to another country that would otherwise be done here in Australia”. So again, this really pushes back from that responsibility that places placed on consumers in the legislation.
Now looking to the findings of the lived experience focus group. Some of the perspectives that came through here.
I think I've chosen to include this quote from a participant who says “modern slavery laws help the exploited victims to get justice and help them get their freedom and live a better life”. And because I think one of the key findings from this piece of the research that stood out for me was that there's a real significant disconnect between what the Act does and what people with lived experience of modern slavery think that a law addressing modern slavery should do. When asked what they know about the Act, participants identified it as containing a serious criminal offence and measures to protect the people who get exploited and encourage victims to raise their voice. As we know, unfortunately it doesn’t.
A participant also, I thought so this is really, really interesting. A participant also assumed that modern slavery statements which we showed them were intended for workers, not consumers, so they assumed upon first looking at these statements that they contain the information about workers rights and entitlements that were really to help workers make decisions about the employees that they were going to go work for or not, and they were quite surprised when we explained no, this is not not intended for workers, it's intended for consumers.
Another really significant thing that stood through in this piece of the research was that empowerment of work is its key in reducing labour exploitation. So, in thinking about how can we design better regulatory interventions to address modern slavery in global supply chains?
This this group of participants really said that workers are the best source of truth as to what the labour conditions are within an organisation. Therefore, speaking directly with work is essential. Now it's really great to see, you know, especially 10 years on in the UK and seven years. So seven years, yes, seven years on in the Australian context.
The involvement of worker voices is significant part of the conversation now around regulating got, you know, business activity in this space and however I think the way that it was done is is at the moment still is very diverse since I've seen some really good examples of it and some not so great examples of it. But essentially what people were saying to me was that they will try to hide a lot of things just so you know, they don't get exposed as much. They'll try to cover up things, they'll blame it on the workers, the employers, you know, so this was an example of some of this cover up culture, which workers told us about, and they were really saying that worker voice and perspective can help to counteract this cover up culture within many businesses where exploitation conditions, exploitative conditions are swept under the carpet.
So making sure that there's those direct mechanisms for worker voice and that they are there is trust in those mechanisms and that they're safe for workers to access, I think is a really key thing. So, another quote, I believe if they speak directly to the employees, they'll also be able to find a whole lot more of the things that are going around in the workplace.
So, that that's the end of my research. I'll just now I guess just to finish off, just talk very quickly about alternative public representation. So based on this these findings, what I'll be doing to kind of finalise my research is is proposing how we can think about regulating in this space in a more effective way, but I just wanted to apply a few of the other regulatory initiatives that exist right now to this kind of problem-solving methodology. So, for example, the forced labour regulation, the EU forced Labour regulation. If we're to think about that at a very, very high level, what is the policy you're proposing to do? It's proposing to prohibit products made with forced labour from being sold on the EU market, and they're putting this forward as the solution. So, applying it to this, what's the problem represented to be the sale of goods being made with forced labour on the EU market is the problem. So that seems to be more aligned with addressing modern slavery in global supply chains. However, it's not actually saying the production of those bills is the issue or the fact that workers are being exploited in those issues. It's saying the sale of those on the on the EU market is the issue, so sorry, is the problem.
Yeah, I don't. I don't think that's. I think there's still some really great value in that. However, I just want to put it out there as opposed to another example one, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with, but the approach that exists in Brazil, in where they have something called a dirty list, So what this policy proposes to do is that the Brazilian government on a semi regular basis, I think it's once a year or once every two years actually publishes a list of employers who have been found by government inspectors, inspectors to be subjecting workers to the conditions analysts my pronunciation today. Excuse me to slavery and banning them from acquiring credit from straight state-owned banks and they they're proposing this as a solution. So you flip that. What is the problem? Employers who have subjected their workers to slavery and the state financial and the state financial supporting these businesses is the problem. So, I think here we have something that's much more aligned with what we know how modern slavery occurs. And you know who are the perpetrators of modern slavery in global supply chain?
And it is employers and it is, you know, businesses. So, I I just want to leave it there in, in terms of thinking about that. But I guess one one final thought based on my background and the desire that I have that I explained to the beginning to to ensure that the way that we use research has impact in in real life what was one of the things I've done with this research in the last few years is I've looked at the Australian government's National Action Plan to combat modern slavery, and one of the aims of that action plan was to engage consumers.
Now, although I think there's an issue in terms of the way the Modern Slavery Act represents the problem and the responsibility that puts in consumers, I do still believe there is a role for consumers. There's a role for everybody, you know, modern slavery is a very complex issue that requires multi stakeholders to respond.
And so I used some of these findings from my consumer research to propose to the Australian government that they needed to to do some work around engaging consumers in this space and helping to address some of those barriers around awareness and understanding of modern slavery. And so, they they agreed and they funded a project called Everyday Slavery, which is a strategic social media project designed to engage with and educate the public as both consumers as well as citizens on modern slavery. So, this project received part of funding from the Australian government through the National Action Plan for two years from August 20, 2023, to June last this year. A couple of months ago and I've been running out across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, so you can see that there's the hack, the hashtag if anyone wants to join. So, the hashtag was, of course, don't even know the handle. That's what I'm going to say.
They handle everyday underscore slavery, and you can find it on those three platforms. But what I wanted to highlight is that I've created a bunch of videos about how slavery turns up in our everyday lives in the production sense that we consume on an everyday basis. So, these are all available on YouTube. So, if you're ever doing any training or presentations that you want to kind of show that perspective, you're more than welcome to jump on and link those in you so it's in your presentations, they'll be there permanently. And my aim with this was really to get to try to start to overcome some of those barriers around consumer awareness and understanding of modern slavery.
I will finish there and have you just take any questions. Thanks so much for having me.