Avenues commits to Employer Pays Principle in Anti-Slavery Week

Anti-Slavery Week 2025 marks a significant time for Avenues. As well as teams continuing awareness-building training to spot the signs of modern slavery, the organisation has also joined the Employer Pays Principle human rights movement. 

The Employer Pays Principle (EPP) , part of the Institute of Human Rights and Business (IHRB), is a growing international movement to promote fair, transparent recruitment.

A significant part of this is making sure jobseekers aren’t asked to pay recruitment-related fees. When this financial pressure is removed, people are less vulnerable to the criminal gangs behind labour exploitation, and human trafficking.

Chief Corporate Services Officer Caroline Neal explains:

What’s next?

The organisation’s training is part of our awareness-raising work with the Unseen charity, which began in 2024. The aim is to strengthen our ability to safeguard both our workforce and the people we support. This work with Unseen is ongoing.

Avenues are preparing to publish our updated Modern Slavery Statement before the end of October. It will set out the extensive work we’ve done so far, and outline our future commitments to tackling modern slavery across our organisation and supply chains.