Event Description

1. Background

 The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that there are nearly 8 million people living in conditions of modern slavery in India. This figure, and the very definition of modern slavery, is disputed by the government of India. However, global fashion brands are increasingly called upon to deal with modern slavery in their supply chains while Indian companies that want to work with international business are required to make declarations about their supply chains in compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act, 2015. What is modern slavery in India? What are the legal and business risks for international brands and Indian companies and what are their obligations?

Thomson Reuters Foundation, C&A Foundation, and Copenhagen Business School invite you to attend a session on ‘Tackling Modern Slavery in India through innovation, collaboration and best practice’.

2. Linkage with Sustainable Fashion Summit 2019 Theme

 During this session, we will discuss the legal and business context in India focusing on issues of supply chain, forced labor and anti-trafficking. The speakers will highlight the innovative approaches they have taken to tackle these issues with a specific focus on supply chains. The discussion will be followed by a brainstorming session on synergies and collaborations on the work to be done during 2019.

3. Objectives of the Session

• Raise awareness of modern slavery amongst brand, NGO and other stakeholders
• Learn about the legal framework that exists and contextualized, innovative approaches to dealing with modern slavery
• Plan an action for creating an Indo-European Forum on modern slavery

4. Session Output

• Identify synergies for organizations to work on issues of modern slavery in India
• Explore one project or research program that will be tracked till the next Copenhagen Fashion Summit

5. Structure of the Session

The session will consist of an introduction by the Copenhagen Business School. It will then be followed by presentations on the work of the Thomson Reuters Foundation and C&A Foundation on their work on preventing modern slavery. Three organizations will share innovative approaches that participants could learn and implement in their own work. This will be followed by a moderated discussion with participants to identify the way forward on the work on modern slavery issues in India from a brand and a government perspective.

6. Program outline

- Welcome and introduction to workshop theme.

• Peter Lund-Thomsen, Professor, Copenhagen Business School (10 Minutes)

- Discussion on Modern Slavery from an Indian legal, human rights, and business perspective.

• Trishna Mohan Kripalani, Legal Programme Manager for South Asia, TrustLaw, Thomson Reuters Foundation
• Anindit Roy Chowdhury, Programme Manager, Gender Justice and Human Rights, C&A Foundation (20 minutes)

- Three organizations will share innovative approaches that participants could learn and implement in their own work. (For example- collaborative approaches and learnings from there). This will be moderated by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (45 minutes).

• Olga Martens, Head of Government Relations, International Justice Mission
• Rishi Sher Singh, Independent Expert
• Madhurima Singh, Creative Director and Founder, DHURI

 - Discussion on the way forward: Examples of brands and governments can do (45 mins)

• Peter McAllister, Executive Director, UK Ethical Trading Initiative
• Prama Bhardwaj, CEO and Founder, Mantis World

 -Closing remarks.

- Wrap up- One minute for each of the speakers.

- Thank you by CBS; Thomson Reuters and C&A representatives

Speaker Profiles

Prama Bhardwaj, CEO & Founder

Mantis World

Prama Bhardwaj, Founder & CEO Mantis World – an award-winning supplier of sustainably sourced “blank” garments to the imprintables market established in 2000.  The company’s heritage came through working with their family-owned  fully transparent vertical mill in Tanzania.  Over the years the company diversified supply routes to mills in Pakistan, India, UK and Bangladesh, seeking the same criteria of sustainability and transparency.  Mantis World demonstrates the success of their triple bottom line model - commercial manufacturing in an ethical and sustainable manner.  Recently Mantis World announced their pledge to have 100% organic or recycled cotton in their range by 2021.

Prama is a board member of the Textile Exchange Europe and Ethical Fashion Forum – both organisations dedicated to transforming social and environmental standards in the fashion industry.  Prama has spoken on sustainable textile manufacturing at the Ethical Fashion Forum (London), Value Added in Africa (House of Lords, London) Fashion Africa Conference (Nairobi & London), Textile Exchange Conference (Mumbai, Hamburg, Washington & Milan) and at Fashion Institute of Technology (New York).

Prama is passionate about non-commercial projects including childrens homes in Africa and womens economic empowerment in Pakistan.  She also works on education of the industry, awareness building on fast fashion and womens' rights. 

Rishi Sher Singh, Independent Expert

Rishi Sher Singh is a specialist in Business & Human Rights (B&HR), Supply Chain Sustainability and Manufacturing. Rishi’s work goes beyond traditional audits and towards creating meaningful dialogue on opportunities and challenges of businesses, especially in supply chains. His passion is to design and implement innovative solutions for businesses which create positive impacts on people, planet and performance. To bridge the gap between theory and practice in B&HR, Rishi also engages with academic institutions (India, UK & Canada) for action research projects.

Rishi’s key areas of implementation are UN Guiding Principles (Pillar 2 & 3) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs- 1,5,10, 12 & 17). Some of Rishi’s impactful work includes Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) for multinational companies, mapping of Mica supply chain in India, enabling Gender Equality within factories and promoting circular economy. At Hewlett Packard Company (2005-10), Rishi piloted a unique capacity building model for suppliers & contract manufacturers, which was instrumental in shaping HP’s current supplier capability programme.

Anindit Roy Chowdhury, Programme Manager, Gender Justice and Human Rights, C&A Foundation

Passionate about Child Protection, Gender Justice and Human Rights, Anindit has devoted his life’s work in planning and management of development initiatives in different organisations, including UN-Women, IPPF, IOM, etc. 

Anindit owes his development sector orientation to his mother, a gender activist, who he grew up with. In his words, “I literally grew up under the table when my mother was having important meetings”.

Anindit has a total of two decades of professional experience and has an MSc from the London School of Economics in Development Management. Currently, he is serving as the Program Manager for C&A Foundation, leading on the foundation's investments on Gender Justice and Human Rights in the apparel supply chain.

Trishna Mohan Kripalani, Legal Programme Manager for South Asia, TrustLaw, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Trishna works as Legal Programme Manager for South Asia with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She manages TrustLaw’s network of NGOs, social enterprises, and lawyers in the region. She facilitates pro bono legal assistance for members, and supports strategic legal research programmes on regional and cross-border issues. She has a particular interest in peace building and business and human rights. She has more than a decade of experience in the legal and humanitarian sector and holds an Advanced Masters in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law from the Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law in Geneva. She is a qualified lawyer in India and has practiced both in chamber practice and law firms. As a lawyer, she has worked on civil, criminal and corporate cases, and handled a team of lawyers at Kochhar and Company dealing mostly in corporate litigation including corporate criminal liability and arbitration. She has also developed and led a training program on business and human rights in India for lawyers. Further, she has been engaged with the development sector with several NGOs and International Organisations such as UNDP, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and has worked for the Ministry of Women and Child Development as a legal consultant.

Peter Lund-Thomsen, Professor, Ph.D., Copenhagen Business School

Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries at the CBS with specialization in sustainable sourcing, CSR/sustainability in local industrial clusters/regions, and impact assessment at the base of global value chains. Responsible for taking the lead in developing the CBS' research in the area of CSR in developing countries and enhancing the CBS teaching and training portfolio in this area. Engages in partnerships with private sector, civil society, governmental, and multi-stakeholder initiatives. These partnerships bring the latest insights from academic research insights worldwide to help these organizations improve the quality of their work and also develop new knowledge and insights into their operations and practices.

Madhurima Singh, Founder and Creative Head, DHURI

Madhurima is a Fashion design graduate from National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai. She founded an ethical fashion label DHURI.  As a designer, she emphasizes on wearability and durability.  She is cognizant of the impact of human activities on the climate. At DHURI, she continuously explores processes and materials that minimize consumption of natural resources and any harmful discharge in the environment.   She is engaged with local skill development clusters to provide them with relevant industrial training and employment opportunities. She also collaborates with master craftsmen like weavers, printers throughout India, whereby they receive fair remuneration for their products.

Peter McAllister, Executive Director, Ethical Trading Initiative



Peter McAllister is Executive Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), a leading alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers’ rights around the globe. ETI works with its members to improve working conditions in global supply chains, recognising that these are complex and challenging, and are best tackled through collaborative efforts. Peter joined ETI in October 2010 and has led the development of a demanding new strategy that seeks to transform the way business approaches workers’ rights, demonstrating impact for workers and value for business. He has spent almost 30 years engaged in international development and rights-based initiatives around the world, including seven years setting up the Geneva-based International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) and 13 years with the international development NGO CARE.

Olga Martens, Head of Government Relations

International Justice Mission

Olga Martens holds an M.A. in International Studies/Peace & Conflict Studies and leads IJMs work with political stakeholders and businesses in Germany.

Based on her research expertise on human trafficking and in close cooperation with IJMs global programs Olga works with German Government to better protect the poor from violence through functioning justice systems. With great passion, she engages with German businesses to better understand the issue of slavery in complex supply chain systems and to find innovative approaches to effectively promote human rights within them. She is convinced that an end of slavery requires courage and outcome-oriented collaboration between NGOs, the corporate sector and governments.