Manchester Airports Group (MAG) is the first UK airport operator to sign up to be a member of the Slave-Free Alliance.
Part of Hope For Justice, Slave-Free Alliance is a charity that works to end modern slavery by preventing exploitation and rescuing victims of modern slavery and helping them to restore their lives.
By being members, MAG will help the Slave-Free Alliance to identify areas across all the group’s supply chains and allows them to independently review, benchmark and develop processes to help combat modern slavery.
Tricia Williams, Chief Customer Officer, MAG said: “By becoming a member of the Slave-Free Alliance we’re taking a proactive approach to ensure that there is transparency in our business and throughout our supply chain, to make sure that nobody is exploited, and we expect our suppliers to share this commitment.
“We’re engaging with all suppliers to eliminate any practices that might compromise the basic human rights of workers in our supply chain, and we will refuse to do business with any organisation which does not consistently uphold standards.
“Our membership of the Alliance is another step in our journey to protect those working for our airports and their suppliers, and to educate ourselves through staff education so that we are able to effectively identify instances of modern slavery.
“We’re proud to be the first UK airport operator to become a member, and hope our work encourages others within our industry to do the same. There is no reason for modern slavery to exist in our society, and we will work hard to ensure it doesn’t happen in connection with our business.”
MAG says it will also create its own internal processes to identify and combat the risk of modern slavery within its airports, which include Manchester Airport (MAN/EGCC), East Midlands (EMA/EGNX) and London Stansted (STN/EGSS). This will include the education and training of its own staff about possible signs that someone may be a victim of exploitation.
Slave-Free Alliance Director Marc Stanton said: “It is fantastic that MAG has chosen to take this positive step and publicly show its commitment to a slave-free supply chain through its membership of Slave-Free Alliance. We are particularly pleased to see MAG’s expectation that its suppliers take their own steps to protect human rights and prevent exploitation. We look forward to working closely with MAG and helping them become a world-leader in their sector on the issue of modern slavery prevention.“