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Human rights and modern slavery

Respecting human rights

At NatWest Group, we understand that businesses have an important role  in promoting respect for human rights. Our approach is informed and guided by internationally recognised human rights standards including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

 

In June 2025, we published our first Human Rights Report (PDF, 18 MB), which brings together our Human Rights Position Statement (last published in December 2022) and our Salient Human Rights Issues disclosure (published in December 2023). View these documents below in 'Our previous Human Rights reports' section.

The Human Rights Report provides an overview of how we integrate human rights considerations into our policies, procedures, and governance frameworks, and focuses on our management of identified salient human rights issues across our five roles as an employer procurer, retail banker, commercial banker, and investor.

 

Our programme of engagement with various stakeholders including charities, investors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) continues to help deepen our knowledge and understanding of human rights issues. We remain signatories of the UN Global Compact (UNGC) and continue to adhere to reporting requirements under a range of initiatives, including the Equator Principles.

 

The Human Rights Action Group (HRAG) continues to coordinate our activities to accelerate our work across human rights and modern slavery, and to make recommendations to the NatWest Group Executive Committee and Board to develop and strengthen our approach.

 

We are continually evolving our approach  and our Sustainable Banking team welcome any input or feedback from stakeholders.

Environmental, Social and Ethical (ESE) Human Rights Risk Acceptance Criteria (RAC)

We have developed a standalone ESE Human Rights RAC which applies requirements around human rights due diligence to additional sectors with heightened human rights risk not already covered by an ESE RAC. It is in addition to checks undertaken as part of our customer due diligence processes and is also intended to help us capture data over time on concerns mapped to our salient human rights issues to ensure we better understand and address human rights risks. We intend to test, evolve and adapt the scope of our ESE Human Rights RAC to continually improve its effectiveness.

Tackling modern slavery and human trafficking

Despite ongoing efforts across the globe, slavery is not going away. It is estimated that around 28 million people around the world are in forced labour, 3.3 million of whom are children(1). While the majority of those impacted are in countries outside the UK, the 2023 Global Slavery Index(2) estimated that there were over 122,000 people in slavery within the UK.

Our approach to modern slavery and human trafficking is continuously evolving to ensure we keep pace with the changing external environment.

We publish an annual statement which sets  out the steps that we are taking to identify and address modern slavery and human trafficking within our own operation and throughout our value chain.

Our current Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement (year end 2024) can be found below alongside our previous statements:

Our 2024 Sustainability Report outlines progress on sustainability-related matters.

 

1) International  Labour Organization

2) Modern slavery in United Kingdom | Walk Free

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