A new report Broken Promises: Two years of corporate reporting under Australia’s Modern Slavery Act examines the second year of corporate statements submitted to the Government’s Modern Slavery Register by 92 companies sourcing from four sectors with known risks of modern slavery: garments from China, rubber gloves from Malaysia, seafood from Thailand and fresh produce from Australia.

The report finds that:

• 66% of companies reviewed are still failing to comply with the basic reporting requirements mandated by the legislation, with some companies not submitting reports at all;
• 56% of the commitments made by companies in the first year of reporting to improve their modern slavery response remained unfulfilled based on their second year statements;
•  43% of companies reviewed are still failing to identify obvious modern slavery risks in their supply chains;
• There is a 6% increase in the number of companies taking some form of effective action to address modern slavery risks, with two in three companies still failing to act.

This research was undertaken by the Human Rights Law Centre, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Baptist World Aid and academics from the Australian Human Rights Institute (UNSW Sydney), Business and Human Rights Centre (RMIT), the University of Melbourne, the University of Notre Dame Australia and the University of Western Australia as part of a multi-year collaborative project evaluating company responses to Australia’s modern slavery reporting regime.