At Ambitious Child Clothing, family is at the heart of everything we do, and our business has been built on the foundation of respect and care for both people and the planet. We will not tolerate slavery, human trafficking or forced labour of any description within our business or supply chains.
We recognise our moral and legal responsibility to help prevent modern slavery and human trafficking and commit to taking robust and effective steps to ensure no such activities arise in the operation of our business.
Our aim is to achieve the highest ethical standards in this regard as we all have a responsibility to be alert to the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in all our daily activities. With that in mind, our employees are expected to report to us any concerns they may have in this regard and our managers are expected to act upon any concerns raised without delay.
This statement sets out the action we have taken to identify, understand and address risks of modern slavery and human trafficking to ensure that there is none in our business or our supply chains.
Ambitious Child Clothing’s business is an online retail store for luxury childrenswear and accessories.
The majority of the products we sell are purchased from suppliers within Western Europe (particularly France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal) and the USA. A small amount of our products are purchased from Turkey, Eastern Europe, China, and India.
We manufacture our own brand childrenswear and this accounts for a small percent of our product offering. Our own brand items are primarily manufactured in Europe. Some items also come from Asia and South America.
Our stock of manufactured products are stored at our premises in Milton Keynes, England.
Ambitious Child Clothing has in place the following policies that set out our approach to the identification and prevention of modern slavery and human trafficking in our own business and our supply chains.
- Modern Slavery Policy: Our Modern Slavery Policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.
- Supplier Code of Conduct: We are committed to ensuring that our suppliers adhere to the highest ethical standards. Suppliers are required to demonstrate that they provide their workers with safe working conditions, treat them with dignity and respect, and act ethically and within the law in their use of labour. Serious violations of Ambitious Child Clothing’s supplier code of conduct will lead to the termination of the business relationship.
Due Diligence and Compliance
While the majority of our buying is with established high-end brands who are themselves engaged in identifying and mitigating the risk of slavery and human trafficking in their own operations, we understand that we have a superior obligation to do the same for our entire supply chain and we take this seriously. We undertake due diligence when considering taking on new suppliers and regularly review our existing suppliers against the same criteria. Our due diligence and reviews include:
- Maintaining awareness through research and expert advice as to whether particular activities, countries or regions are high risk in relation to slavery or human trafficking.
- Conducting research on any new brand we consider stocking to insure they meet ethical standards within their production and supply chains.
- For the small proportion of items we do manufacture, again, we conduct research on all manufactures we consider working with to insure they meet ethical standards within their production and supply chains. We are also taking advice on how best to audit and measure improvement across these suppliers with more confidence.
- Where there are areas of non-conformance we will follow up as appropriate and consider terminating the business relationship for suppliers that do not provide evidence of improvement in-line with an action plan.
- In addition, the company directors of the supplier are asked to sign our supplier code of conduct.
Areas of Highest Risk
Where we consider suppliers to potentially represent a higher risk, we undertake a more detailed review of these suppliers with a greater degree of focus on slavery and human trafficking.
Slavery and human trafficking could potentially occur at other stages of the retail process, for example in our offices, or warehouses. We consider this risk to be reduced compared to earlier stages in the supply chain as a result of our policies and approach, our strong human resources department and oversight, our commitment to paying the UK Living Wage Foundation wage, and our well-trained employees. This means that our focus on ensuring that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place is focused on suppliers, particularly those in higher risk locations.
Measuring Performance
In order to measure how effective we are in ensuring that modern slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in our business or supply chains, we are:
- Continuing to develop a system for supply chain verification, whereby we evaluate potential suppliers before they enter our supply chain and monitor their on-going compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct; and
- Continuing to improve training for our teams so that they can better implement our evolving system for supply chain verification.
Training
We require all key staff to complete training on modern slavery to ensure they understand the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking infiltrating our business and supply chains. This training covers:
The organisation’s modern slavery training covers:
- Our business’s purchasing practices, which influence supply chain conditions, and which should therefore be designed to prevent purchases at unrealistically low prices, the use of labour engaged on unrealistically low wages or wages below a country’s national minimum wage, or the provision of products by an unrealistic deadline;
- How to assess the risk of slavery and human trafficking in relation to various aspects of the business, including resources and support available;
- How to identify the signs of slavery and human trafficking;
- What initial steps should be taken if slavery or human trafficking is suspected;
- How to escalate potential slavery or human trafficking issues to the relevant parties within the organisation;
- What external help is available, for example through the Modern Slavery Helpline, Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and “Stronger together” initiative;
- What messages, business incentives or guidance can be given to suppliers and other business partners and contractors to implement anti-slavery policies; and
- What steps the organisation should take if suppliers or contractors do not implement anti-slavery policies in high-risk scenarios, including their removal from the organisation’s supply chains.
Nikisha Whyte
Company Owner