The British Standards Institution has revealed their new research that suggests which of the source countries pose the largest threat of modern day slavery to the UK and the UK construction industry as a result of its global supply chains.

The research, which is called the BSI Trafficking & Supply Chain Slavery Patterns Index, has shown that China is ranked amongst the high risk source countries of modern day slaver to the UK. China is a nation that supplied 18% of all annual construction materials coming in to the UK in 2015. Another surprising find is the Italy was also ranked by the BSI in their index as being a country that is high risk. £13.83 billion of construction materials were imported in to the UK. 6.4% of this total were imports from Italy.

The BSI Trafficking & Supply Chain Patterns Index is a unique way of assessing the risk to the UK of imports originating from modern day slavery. A main economic concern in this practice will be the lowering in the price of construction materials as a result of unethical working standards. Therefore t is important to monitor the sources of the UKs imported materials. The Index analyses the business, government and civil society in order to work out the risk of modern day slavery and the free movement of people being exploited when importing and exporting materials. Whether one of the 191 source countries that goods are imported into the UK or the 193 destination countries that receive exported goods from the UK, the BSI have ranked each country from low to severe risk of using modern day slavery within their construction industries.

The Modern Slavery Act was introduced in 2015 and raises concerns surrounding human trafficking to the UK as well as civil society. The purpose of the Index is to support the BSI’s risk management services to empower organisations and allow them to focus on protecting their workforce and reputations.