Overview

Anti-Slavery International (ASI), founded in 1839, is the world’s oldest international human rights organisation. It works to eradicate all forms of modern slavery and human trafficking. ASI promotes freedom, equality, and justice through advocacy, partnerships, and survivor-led initiatives across the globe.

Mission and focus areas

ASI’s mission is to end slavery in all its forms, including forced labour, child slavery, descent-based slavery, and human trafficking. It collaborates with governments, businesses, and communities to influence systemic change. Its focus includes ethical business practices, responsible supply chains, and addressing links between climate change and exploitation—contributing to social sustainability and human rights integration within ESG frameworks.

Structure and governance

Based in London, ASI is a UK-registered charity and company limited by guarantee. It operates under a board of trustees providing strategic oversight, supported by a professional team managing advocacy, communications, and partnerships. ASI works with international networks and local partners to deliver programmes and policy engagement at both grassroots and institutional levels.

Programs and offerings

ASI conducts advocacy campaigns, research, and policy development to influence anti-slavery legislation and corporate accountability. It provides educational resources, publishes reports, and engages with businesses to promote ethical sourcing and transparency. Through initiatives such as the Responsible Business and Climate Change programmes, ASI empowers practitioners to identify and mitigate slavery risks within global value chains.

Vision, mission and strategy

Background

Global human rights instruments and institutions are under significant pressure, the climate is in crisis, and these challenges disproportionately affect poorer communities. Safe migration routes are under threat, creating opportunities for traffickers. Many countries, where slavery is most persistent, are growing economically, and are no longer eligible for development aid.

Across the modern anti-slavery sector there is consensus that responses to date have tended to be piecemeal and the sector uncoordinated, limiting sustainable long-term change to the drivers of modern slavery. Further work is needed to effectively and ethically include survivor voices as the norm. A critical related problem is that funding for the movement is often short term, insufficient and inflexible.

Our emerging strategy responds to these challenges.

Our values

We aim to demonstrate the following values through our work, both internally and externally:

Dynamic

We commit to continuous improvement and do not assume yesterday’s ideas will work today. We are flexible, open-minded, take calculated risks and respond to opportunities.

Inclusive

We believe that everyone has a role in ending slavery, we make sure every voice is respected and nurture diverse perspectives and partnerships to create better solutions. We make sure that those with direct experience of slavery and survivors inform our work.

Transformative

We are determined, taking considered and courageous action that has lasting, systemic impact with humans at its heart.

Our vision

Our vision is to realise freedom from slavery for everyone, everywhere, always.

We aim to do this by:

Making ending slavery everyone’s concern;
Acting as an ally to survivors and people at risk of slavery, elevating their voice and experience to create radical change; and
With others, challenging and changing law, policy and practice so everyone, everywhere can be free from slavery.
Over the coming five years, our focus themes will be:

• Ending child and youth slavery
• Responsible business
• Migration and trafficking
• Slavery and the environment

We seek to address these issues in four pathways:

• Capacity building. We will make sure that partnership means that civil society organisations are more sustainable and representative as a result of working with us.
• Leveraging. We will use our convening power to collaborate with cross-sector organisations and individuals who can bring their resources and expertise to the cause of ending slavery.
• Learning. We will take a learning approach, building skills and systems for improving evidence to inform policy and practice. Research will illustrate systemic causes of slavery, the routes out of it and share our experience with new actors.
• Influencing with survivors. Drawing on our learning and experience with survivors and those at risk of slavery, we will leverage our partnerships and brand to build coalitions and amplify messages to achieve systems change.