Tackling Modern Slavery in Malaysian Medical Gloves Factories Using a Whole-Systems Approach to the Supply Chain

This project will identify and implement mechanisms to prevent and remediate modern slavery in the recruitment and employment of workers in the medical gloves sector in Malaysia, where demand for gloves has more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst endemic abuse of worker rights has either continued or become worse. In 2019 Malaysia was the source of two-thirds of gloves supplied to the world by volume, and also the main source of gloves to the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Over 1.8 billion gloves have been provided for use in health and social care in England since the start of the pandemic. Manufacturing is reliant on migrant labour in glove factories, where recent media reports highlight conditions of modern slavery, including payment of high recruitment fees leading to debt bondage, confiscation of passports, and restrictions on movement or association. The UK NHS Supply Chain is the single largest purchaser of gloves in the world, responsible for procuring up to 80% of medical goods in England and Wales. The recent UK Government Modern Slavery Statement in March 2020 included a commitment to pilot work in the gloves sector which, along with increasing pressure on the production of gloves, means it is timely to pick up analysis and identify where in UK and international supply chains change can be leveraged, and understand the drivers and barriers to such change.

The research will employ a whole-systems approach to understand structures and processes affecting workers and modern slavery in the Malaysian gloves sector during the pandemic. Through interviews with actors at all tiers in the supply chain (workers, factory management, suppliers, purchasers, and policy makers), we aim to identify pathways of change and communicate these throughout the supply chain so that, for example, procurement policy can be made sensitive to the realities of global supply chain issues, including providing appropriate logistical support, commercial and contractual terms, and pricing to enable the changes needed, and incorporating mechanisms to enable real and sustained worker voice and representation. Our approach to understanding and tackling modern slavery in Malaysian medical gloves factories involves the use of a whole supply chain approach to avoid a situation where individual subsystems are optimised but the whole supply chain remains sub-optimal.

Through stakeholder engagement workshops, reports and policy briefs, the project will generate policy influence and change focused on UK procurement and supply chain organisations in the UK and Malaysia and will build the connection between procurement governance and practices in the UK and the occurrence of labour exploitation at the upstream end of the supply chain in Malaysia. Most importantly, it will support demonstrable outcomes for the victims and survivors of modern slavery in the Malaysian gloves sector, including education and the reimbursement of recruitment fees, and will produce recommendations for policy-makers and NHS procurement on incentivising and implementing improvement. The project will be executed by an interdisciplinary team already at the forefront of raising awareness and tackling these issues in the gloves supply chain, in order to ensure swift and sustainable positive outcomes.