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Modern slavery is a terrible crime and represents the serious abuse of the human rights of some of the most vulnerable people. It can take various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. Better Equipped Educational Supplies Ltd. welcomes the Modern Slavery Act of 2015 and is committed to both comply with the legislation but also to continue to act ethically and with integrity and decency in all of its business dealings and relationships.
Better Equipped has a zero tolerance approach to all aspects of modern slavery. We support the promotion of ethical business policies and practices in order to protect workers from any kind of abuse, deprivation of liberty or exploitation in relation to our business and our wider supply chain.
Our Modern Slavery Policy applies to all individuals working for the Company or on the Company’s behalf in any capacity including employees, directors, agents, contractors, consultants and all other business partners. We are alert to the risks of exploitation and modern slavery and so work very closely with our supply base and take responsibility for ensuring ethical practices throughout our supply chain.
Better Equipped ensures we comply with all applicable employment laws and commit to ensuring fairness in the hiring and development of all colleagues without discrimination. We require all staff to comply with the company’s codes of conduct and ethics within all business dealings. We try to cultivate a climate of trust and transparency and work hard to ensure we not only comply with legislation but have a culture which ensures all colleagues are respected, valued and rewarded appropriately.
We insist on only working with suppliers who share our ethical values. We encourage open transactions and lines of discussions and work through challenges together with suppliers, with a refusal to trade with them should they offer little or no engagement or transparency. We require our suppliers to ensure they do not use forced labour, bonded or any involuntary labour within their operation.
We have Terms of Trade with our suppliers which include a section on Modern Slavery which itself includes the following section:
‘To be clear Better Equipped will not trade with any company which actively practices abuse, deprivation of liberty or exploitation or any company which neglects to act against abuse, deprivation of liberty or exploitation within their own business or supply chain.’
We understand the key to assessing risk is to build relationships with suppliers where we develop a culture of mutual respect and trust in the evaluation of risk. We insist on full transparency and visibility throughout all aspects of our Supply Chain. However, we recognise that aspects of modern slavery can be extremely subtle, with forced labour, labour trafficking and exploitation of workers often being hidden from sight – therefore we adopt a diligent approach in our selection of new suppliers, have frank and honest conversations and conduct factory visits throughout our supplier base.
Better Equipped recognise that goods we supply and import from outside the UK are at risk of slavery and human trafficking - we will commit to working collaboratively with suppliers in order to raise continued awareness and continually review our verification processes to address and eradicate any such risks.
We commit to review annually our Modern Slavery policy and to do our upmost to help eradicate the blight of modern slavery from all societies.
This statement has been approved by the Better Equipped board of directors.
Dated: 1st October 2019
