Unfree Agency: Victim Vulnerability and the Unwitting Reproduction of Modern Slavery in Business

Abstract

In this article, I challenge prevailing assumptions in modern slavery research by addressing an uncomfortable question: Under what conditions do systems of exploitation become self-reinforcing through the constrained choices available to those subjected to them? I extend the concept of unfree agency to show how survival-driven actions can unintentionally stabilise exploitative arrangements. Drawing on vulnerability theory, Sen’s account of unfreedoms, and debates on labour agency and moral complicity, I develop a framework linking structural vulnerability, constrained choices, normalisation, unwitting reproduction, and the persistence of exploitation. The article contributes to modern slavery scholarship by connecting micro-level coping practices to the macro-level reproduction of exploitation, and to business ethics debates by refining how consent and responsibility should be understood under coercion. I call for a liberation ethics perspective that evaluates business and policy responses according to whether they expand the substantive freedoms and capabilities of those with the least agency.

Introduction

Modern slavery – an umbrella term encompassing forced labour, debt bondage, human trafficking and other forms of extreme labour exploitation – persists as a pressing ethical challenge in global business. An estimated 50 million people worldwide were living in conditions of modern slavery in 2021 despite universal condemnation of such practices (International Labour Organization, 2022). Existing scholarship in business ethics and management has shed light on how unscrupulous actors within supply chains knowingly exploit vulnerable workers through coercive practices and cost-minimisation strategies (Benstead et al., 2021; Crane, LeBaron, et al., 2022; LeBaron, 2021; Shahadat & Uddin, 2022). This body of work has exposed the business side of modern slavery – for instance, how organisations develop systematic approaches to profit from labour exploitation – and has primarily cast firms and traffickers as the active perpetrators, with victims portrayed as passive targets to be rescued (Crane, 2013; Crane, LeBaron, et al., 2022). However, relatively little research has addressed the difficult reality that, under certain conditions, victims’ own survival-driven actions may unwittingly help perpetuate the very systems that oppress them.

In this article, I address an uncomfortable question: what if victims, under extreme duress, help sustain exploitative systems not by choice or blameworthy intent, but as a result of “unfree” survival imperatives? Drawing on the concept of “unfree agency” (Garnett, 2017; Reeves, 2022) – the idea that victims of modern slavery exercise agency under severe constraints in ways that can inadvertently contribute to the continuity of their exploitation – I discuss how structural coercion, historical “unfreedoms,” and extreme vulnerability compel victims to make constrained choices that reinforce and reproduce exploitation. By reframing victims as neither wholly passive nor fully free agents, the article challenges the conventional perpetrator–victim binary and highlights the self-reinforcing dynamics of modern slavery. Crucially, this line of inquiry is not intended to assign blame to victims; rather, it highlights the structural conditions that constrain their agency, in order to underscore the moral urgency of dismantling those conditions.

To explore this paradox, I draw on vulnerability theory (Fineman, 2008), the concept of “unfreedoms” (Sen, 1999), and debates on labour agency (Bowie, 2017; Skrivankova, 2010) and moral complicity under constraints (Caruana et al., 2021; I. M. Young, 2011). I develop a cyclical process framework – the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction (Figure 1) – that theorises how structural vulnerability and constrained individual agency interact in a self-perpetuating loop of exploitation. This framework explicates five interrelated phases through which modern slavery sustains itself: (a) structural vulnerability creates susceptibility to enslavement; (b) initial entrapment is followed by constrained choices and survival strategies that ensure victim compliance; (c) over time exploitation becomes normalised, eroding victims’ sense of alternatives; (d) victims then unwittingly contribute to maintaining the system; and (e) ongoing exploitation deepens poverty and powerlessness, reinforcing the original structural conditions. The cycle is self-reinforcing yet not inevitable – it can be disrupted by external intervention or acts of resistance at various stages. While the framework is not a deterministic, one-size-fits-all path and victim experiences remain heterogeneous, it generalises recurring mechanisms that help explain the persistence and resilience of modern slavery.

Figure 1.

A Cyclical Process Framework of the Self-Reinforcing Reproduction of Exploitation (Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction).

By addressing this under-discussed aspect of modern slavery, the article makes three contributions. First, it integrates micro-level victim agency with macro-level structural analysis by developing a cyclical process framework that extends recent insights into the continuum of freedom-unfreedom in exploitation. LeBaron (2015) demonstrates that unfree labour is embedded in broader neoliberal political-economic structures and social hierarchies, while Banerjee (2021) argues that modern slavery functions as an enabling condition of global neoliberal capitalism. Crane, Soundararajan, et al. (2022) further problematise binary notions of freedom and slavery by showing how hybrid (un)freedom emerges from the coexistence of restrictive and enabling conditions in workers’ lived experiences. Building on these foundations, this article re-theorises unfree agency – extending the concept developed by Reeves (2022) and Garnett (2017) – as a dynamic mechanism linking structural vulnerability to the ongoing reproduction of exploitation. Whereas existing work clarifies the conditions under which unfreedom arises, it leaves under-theorised the processes through which exploitative systems sustain themselves over time. By developing the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction as a cyclical process framework, I explain how victims’ constrained survival practices can unintentionally stabilise and reproduce exploitative arrangements. This extension has important implications: it helps explain why modern slavery often persists despite regulatory and organisational interventions and highlights the need to address not only structural conditions but also the feedback mechanisms that reproduce them.

Second, the article advances debates on the moral “grey zones” (Levi, 1986) of consent, agency, and responsibility under coercion (Garnett, 2017; Reeves, 2022). It moves beyond portraying victims as either free agents or helpless objects by grappling with the ethically fraught reality that individuals may appear to comply with exploitative arrangements as a rational survival strategy without possessing genuine autonomy (Landman & Silverman, 2019). In doing so, it contributes to organisational ethics by clarifying how responsibility should be understood when agency exists in form but not in substance.

Third, the article carries practical implications. It urges businesses, policymakers, and anti-slavery initiatives to rethink their approaches in light of unfree agency. Rather than relying on token compliance or viewing victims solely as passive rescue objects, organisations should adopt what I term a “liberation ethics” – an approach inspired by Enrique Dussel’s liberation philosophy that evaluates institutions from the standpoint of the oppressed and prioritises the expansion of substantive freedom for those with the least power (Mendieta, 1995; Sen, 1999). In practical terms, this requires companies to move beyond paper transparency and audit checklists to address structural conditions such as poverty, inequality, and dependency that trap workers in states of unfreedom. Policymakers must improve enforcement and support structures that reduce vulnerability, while civil society should incorporate survivor perspectives to design interventions that can genuinely disrupt exploitative cycles. In sum, the article aims to shift modern slavery scholarship by centring the involuntary role of victims in sustaining exploitation – not to assign blame but to underscore the urgency of dismantling the structural conditions that leave individuals with no meaningful alternatives.

The structure of the article is as follows. I begin with a critical tour of three interrelated strands of literature: (a) the structural and organisational conditions through which modern slavery is embedded and sustained in business contexts; (b) vulnerability and unfreedom as theoretical foundations for understanding victims’ constrained choices; and (c) debates on labour agency and moral complicity under oppression. Building on these foundations, I develop the cyclical process framework that theorises how victims’ survival strategies mediate between micro-level experience and the macro-level reproduction of exploitation. The article then discusses the theoretical and practical implications of this framework for business ethics and concludes by arguing for a reorientation of ethical practices aimed at disrupting the cycle of vulnerability and exploitation.

Modern Slavery in Organisational Contexts: Structural Conditions and Management Practices

Recent research shows that modern slavery is not only a criminal issue but also an organisational and systemic problem built into global value chains. Corporations and their supply networks – especially in industries facing intense cost pressures and complex subcontracting – have been linked to practices such as forced labour, human trafficking, and other forms of “unfree” work (Crane, LeBaron, et al., 2022; Rioux et al., 2020). Business practices and market dynamics can create an environment ripe for exploitation, especially when combined with extreme inequalities across countries and communities. For instance, global brands’ relentless drive to cut costs and meet tight production deadlines often transmits pressure onto suppliers, which in turn may result in abusive labour practices down the chain (Benstead et al., 2021; Meehan & Pinnington, 2021). In many documented cases, suppliers facing razor-thin margins resort to debt bondage, child labour, or trafficking of migrant workers to meet buyer demands (Barrientos et al., 2013; LeBaron, 2014b). Modern slavery thus flourishes in the intersections of weak labour protections, poverty, and profit incentives.

Importantly, not all exploitation stems from rogue “bad apple” firms; structural forces can push even ordinary economic actors into perpetuating unfreedom. Vulnerable populations often have few viable alternatives and may become complicit in exploitative arrangements simply to survive. For example, in West Africa’s cocoa farming sector – a context long plagued by child labour – impoverished smallholder families sometimes rely on their children’s work to maintain household income. These parents and children are not overtly forced by a human trafficker; rather, they are constrained by a top-down system of poverty and power imbalance. Global market pressures keep crop prices so low that farmers feel compelled to use child labour, inadvertently perpetuating the cycle of unfreedom (International Cocoa Initiative, n.d.; LeBaron & Gore, 2020). This illustrates that modern slavery often arises from systemic conditions: a confluence of structural “unscrupulousness” (e.g., deeply unequal market relations, colonial legacies of exploitation, social hierarchies) that goes beyond a simple division of “good vs evil” companies. As LeBaron (2015) argues, the resurgence of unfree labour is anchored in broad political-economic shifts – such as neoliberal market reforms, labour deregulation, and the erosion of social safety nets – which intensify workers’ insecurity and create a spectrum of coercive labour relations embedded within global supply networks. Modern slavery, in this view, is not an isolated deviance but an extreme point on a continuum of labour unfreedom that is reproduced by structural inequalities in the world economy.

Within organisational contexts, various management practices have been identified that knowingly or unknowingly sustain exploitative labour. “Unscrupulous” businesses may organise exploitation systematically – for instance by using labour brokers who traffic workers, or by creating captivity situations like company-controlled worker dormitories that restrict freedom (Crane, LeBaron, et al., 2022; Crane, Soundararajan, et al., 2022; Ngai & Smith, 2007). At times, firms treat forced labour as a calculated part of their operations, hiding behind complex subcontracting to deny responsibility (Crane, LeBaron, et al., 2022). In other cases, even firms that do not deliberately seek forced labour can become complicit through negligence or wilful blindness – for example, by squeezing suppliers to the point that labour abuses become inevitable (New, 2015).

Public scrutiny and legal measures have begun to target these organisational contributors to modern slavery. The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA), for instance, introduced Transparency in Supply Chains provisions requiring large companies to report annually on their efforts to identify and address modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. This legislative move was intended to spur corporate action through disclosure. However, the MSA’s transparency requirements are essentially a form of soft law, lacking strong enforcement mechanisms or penalties for non-compliance (Islam & Van Staden, 2022). In practice, many companies have treated the reporting mandate as a box-checking exercise, producing vague or minimal statements that satisfy the formal requirement without engendering substantive changes. Studies have found a relative lack of substance and quality of disclosure in many firms’ modern slavery statements, suggesting that ambiguity and token compliance are often deliberately used by firms to appear responsive while actually protecting the business (and its supply chain relationships) rather than the victims (LeBaron & Rühmkorf, 2019; Meehan & Pinnington, 2021). In other words, some companies choose superficial fixes over difficult reforms, deflecting attention with glossy reports instead of tackling the underlying problems – a tendency that warrants a more critical stance from scholars and regulators alike.

Beyond corporations, other actors and assumptions in the anti-slavery ecosystem deserve scrutiny. One frequently invoked idea is that empowered consumers will pressure firms to eschew slave labour by rewarding ethical supply chains and punishing abusive ones through boycotts or preferences for slave-free products. While consumer engagement is important, this mechanism faces significant practical limits. Consumers are typically separated by information asymmetries and corporate obfuscation from the ground truth of supply chain labour conditions, and even well-intentioned buyers often lack clear and reliable information about which products are linked to exploitation (Pinnington et al., 2023; Stevenson & Cole, 2018). A substantial body of research on ethical consumption further shows that expressed concern rarely translates into consistent purchasing behaviour: consumers routinely overstate their willingness to pay for ethically produced goods, and situational constraints such as price and convenience tend to dominate actual decisions (Auger & Devinney, 2007; Carrington et al., 2010). This well-documented intention–action gap is reinforced by rationalisations that allow individuals to reconcile ethical awareness with conventional consumption patterns (Caruana et al., 2016). In short, market pressures alone – whether through transparency-driven reputational incentives or consumer choice – have proven insufficient to eliminate modern slavery (Banerjee, 2021; Smith & Johns, 2020). Without structural reforms and proactive intervention, exploitative labour practices adapt and persist.

This recognition sets the stage for exploring an even less understood aspect: how the behaviour of those most oppressed by these structures might inadvertently contribute to the status quo. I turn next to the concepts of vulnerability and unfreedom that underpin this phenomenon.

Vulnerability and “Unfreedom” as Foundations for Exploitation

To understand modern slavery from the victims’ perspective, we must understand the structural and interpersonal forces that severely constrain their agency. I begin with Fineman’s (2008) vulnerability theory and Sen’s (1999) concept of “unfreedom,” and then incorporate insights from critical labour studies on the continuum of free and unfree labour. Vulnerability in Fineman’s (2008) sense is a universal and inherent part of the human condition – we are all vulnerable to change, violence, illness, and economic forces – but it is also shaped and intensified by social conditions and power structures. Modern slavery victims occupy positions of extreme vulnerability: they often belong to marginalised social groups (e.g., impoverished castes, migrant workers, undocumented immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities) and lack the protective buffers of wealth, legal status, or social support (Chrispal et al., 2021; Kara, 2012; Yea & Chok, 2018). These pre-existing conditions – what some scholars term “structural violence” (Farmer, 2004) or “historical” unfreedoms (Shahadat & Uddin, 2022) – mean that victims enter exploitative situations with extremely limited choices.

Sen’s (1999) notion of “unfreedom” captures this condition well. He argues that development should be understood as the expansion of individuals’ substantive freedoms – the capabilities and options people have to lead lives they value. Unfreedoms, conversely, refer to systemic deprivations of freedom: poverty, lack of opportunity, oppression, and coercion that prevent people from acting as fully free agents (Sen, 1999; see also Reeves, 2022). Modern slavery represents an extreme convergence of such unfreedoms. Victims face overt coercion (e.g., violence or threats by exploiters) layered onto structural constraints such as poverty, discrimination, and lack of education. In Sen’s (1999) terms, they are “unfree” long before they are physically enslaved, due to the collapse of the social, economic, and political choices available to them.

This layered vulnerability is both a cause and a consequence of modern slavery. On the one hand, individuals who are desperately poor, socially excluded, or legally invisible are easily targeted by traffickers and unscrupulous employers (Banarjee et al., 2025; Shahadat & Uddin, 2022). Their dependency and powerlessness invite exploitation: they can be deceived or forced into abusive work with little recourse. On the other hand, the experience of enslavement itself extends vulnerability. Victims often emerge traumatised, with fewer assets or options than before, and may be stigmatised or physically weakened, increasing their susceptibility to re-exploitation (Evans et al., 2022). This dynamic produces a vicious structural cycle in which entire communities and social groups remain trapped in intergenerational unfreedom (e.g., bonded labour castes in South Asia or indebted migrant labour networks) (Chrispal et al., 2021; Kara, 2012).

Crucially, modern slavery cannot be understood solely through individual-level factors; it is embedded in broader structures of inequality and domination. As LeBaron (2015) argues, unfree labour must be analysed beyond simple binaries of slave versus free. Drawing on feminist political economy, she shows that the deepening of neoliberal capitalism has produced a spectrum of exploitative labour arrangements in which capital’s pursuit of security and profit relies on rendering certain populations highly insecure. Global economic shifts – deregulation, outsourcing, the weakening of labour rights, and hierarchical social relations along lines of class, gender, race, and citizenship – have generated conditions in which various forms of unfree or precarious labour proliferate. Modern slavery represents one endpoint of these broader “variegated” power relations rather than a standalone phenomenon. This perspective underscores that those trapped in modern slavery are often affected both by structural injustices that leave them desperate and by the direct exploiters who capitalise on that desperation.

By situating vulnerability and unfreedom at the core of modern slavery, I set a foundation for understanding victim behaviour under such conditions. People living in extreme unfreedom still make choices, but those choices are heavily coerced and constrained by circumstance. My use of the concept of “unfree agency” (extending the work of Reeves, 2022; Garnett, 2017) begins from this recognition: agency – the capacity to act – does not disappear under slavery, but operates within such strict bounds of necessity and fear that it becomes shaped by the oppressive context. Before developing this concept further, I turn to existing debates on labour agency and the notion of complicity under constraint to discuss how scholars have addressed victims’ roles in their own exploitation.

Labour Agency and Moral Complicity Under Constraint

A particularly challenging aspect of modern slavery concerns the ambiguous role of victims’ own agency. Traditional narratives tend to portray enslaved or coerced workers as passive and devoid of agency – mere objects of others’ actions (Crane, LeBaron, et al., 2022). This perspective aligns with a human rights framing that emphasises victims’ lack of choice, suggesting that everything is done against their will (Gallagher & Pearson, 2010). By contrast, critical scholarship and survivor accounts indicate that people in bondage often demonstrate forms of agency, resilience, and resistance, albeit within tight structural limits (Phillips, 2013; Simic & Blitz, 2019). The reality, I argue, lies in a grey zone (Levi, 1986): victims of modern slavery act and react, but under such coercive pressures that their actions cannot be regarded as fully free in the conventional sense.

A growing interdisciplinary literature recognises this complexity (Caruana et al., 2021; Skrivankova, 2010). Historians of slavery have documented that enslaved individuals found subtle ways to exert agency – by negotiating small privileges, sabotaging work, or shaping aspects of their labour – even while subject to brutal domination (Genovese, 1974; Stampp, 1956). Contemporary studies similarly observe that migrant workers and trafficking survivors retain perspectives on and influence over their situations, rather than functioning as passive captives (Banarjee et al., 2025; Chrispal et al., 2021; Kara, 2012). LeBaron et al. (2017) further note that workers may exercise agency both in entering coercive labour relations – for example by choosing risky migration under conditions of desperation – and in everyday decision-making within those relations. Recognising such agency does not imply responsibility for exploitation; rather, it indicates that analyses of modern slavery that ignore victims’ decision-making remain incomplete.

How, then, should agency be conceptualised in situations of extreme coercion? One approach is to distinguish between formal and substantive agency, drawing on Sen’s (1999) distinction between formal freedoms and the substantive capabilities people possess to act. Enslaved or severely exploited individuals retain formal agency in that they perform actions – they labour and may comply or resist in various ways – but they largely lack substantive agency, namely the capacity to choose alternatives or meaningfully alter their circumstances. My intention in this article is to extend the concept of unfree agency (Garnett, 2017; Reeves, 2022) to capture this paradoxical condition: the agency of individuals acting under conditions of unfreedom. Unfree agency here refers to goal-directed behaviour undertaken by victims to survive or reduce harm, which unintentionally aligns with the exploiter’s interests and thereby sustains the oppressive situation. In practical terms, it encompasses actions victims feel compelled to take in order to endure their circumstances, even when those actions reinforce the system that constrains them. This notion resonates with sociological discussions of “bounded agency” (Evans, 2007) or “constrained choice” (Bird & Rieker, 2008, pp. 63–65), while foregrounding the ethical tensions specific to slavery.

Victims’ survival strategies generate a form of moral ambiguity that warrants careful attention. On one level, these strategies are rational responses to severe constraints and represent attempts to reduce suffering or avoid greater harm. On another level, they may resemble participation in wrongdoing: for example, a prisoner-turned-capo in a forced labour camp supervising fellow victims (Levi, 1986), or a trafficked woman recruiting others from her village after attaining a marginally privileged position within a trafficking network (Bales & Soodalter, 2009, pp. 120–121). Such situations can be understood as instances of “moral complicity under duress” (Yea & Chok, 2018). They raise difficult questions: can a person be complicit in injustice when meaningful alternatives are absent? How should apparent consent to exploitation – such as compliance with rules or failure to escape – be interpreted? These issues have long been debated in ethics and law. I. M. Young (2011) argues that in contexts of structural injustice, responsibility is distributed and analysis must avoid victim-blaming simplifications. She distinguishes between blame, which presupposes fully free moral agency, and political responsibility for transforming unjust structures, which can be shared by those who benefit from or inadvertently participate in them. Applied to modern slavery, this perspective suggests that even when victims take actions that contribute to the continuation of their exploitation, primary responsibility remains with the oppressive system and those who organise or profit from it. Victims’ agency represents coerced contribution rather than voluntary collaboration.

It is essential to emphasise that understanding victims’ agency in sustaining exploitation does not entail blaming victims or excusing perpetrators. Any claim that enslaved people are responsible for their predicament would be both ethically untenable and analytically unsound. The purpose of my discussion is instead to illuminate mechanisms through which exploitation reproduces itself, thereby supporting efforts to dismantle it. Recognising unfree agency helps explain why modern slavery persists: victims are caught in a dynamic in which actions taken under duress can further bind them to the system. This insight invites more refined ethical reflection. Classical ethical frameworks, including Kantian deontology and utilitarianism, often presuppose a clear distinction between voluntary and coerced action. Unfree agency destabilises this distinction: actions may be voluntary in execution yet involuntary in essence, complicating established notions of consent and responsibility. In modern slavery contexts, consent is frequently compromised. A victim may appear to agree to exploitative conditions or sign a contract, but only because alternatives are worse or inaccessible. Such consent exists in form but not in substance. It neither legitimises exploitation nor negates victimhood. Accordingly, my framework (Figure 1) treats compliance or acquiescence not as genuine consent but as another expression of coercion mediated through the victim’s own actions.

In sum, recognising labour agency under constraint leads to an analytically demanding space in which victims may appear to engage in practices that sustain their own oppression. Some observers describe this as victims acting against themselves or others, for instance when forced to enforce rules on fellow victims (Bales & Soodalter, 2009, pp. 120–121). This constitutes a grey zone in Levi’s (1986) terms. Rather than avoiding this complexity, this article seeks to unpack it systematically. By doing so, I believe we can gain a more complete picture of modern slavery’s mechanisms and open the door to interventions that address not only perpetrators’ actions but also the structural and psychological constraints shaping victims’ behaviour. The following section introduces the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction, a framework that synthesises these insights into a cyclical model explaining how unfree agency contributes to the persistence of modern slavery over time.

A Cyclical Process Framework: The Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction

Building on the previous discussion, I develop a cyclical process framework (Figure 1) to explain how victims’ constrained choices and survival strategies can unintentionally sustain a self-reinforcing cycle of exploitation. Figure 1 presents the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction as a set of connected phases through which structural vulnerability, constrained agency, and feedback mechanisms interact over time. The framework is not a linear sequence. Instead, it shows how vulnerability and entrapment lead to survival strategies and processes of normalisation that may result in victims unwittingly helping to maintain exploitative arrangements, which in turn reinforce the conditions that produced vulnerability in the first place. Dashed arrows indicate points where the cycle may be disrupted through external intervention or collective resistance. The figure guides the discussion that follows. Each subsection elaborates one phase of the cycle while recognising that lived experiences are varied and do not follow a fixed or deterministic path.

Structural Vulnerability and Initial Entrapment

The cycle begins with structural vulnerability and initial entrapment, which create the conditions for constrained agency. Structural vulnerability refers to background conditions that make certain groups susceptible to exploitation. As discussed in section “Vulnerability and ‘Unfreedom’ as Foundations for Exploitation,” these include extreme poverty, weak social safety nets, political marginalisation, conflict or displacement, and discriminatory social hierarchies based on caste, ethnicity, or gender. These factors correspond to the “supply-side” dynamics described by Crane (2013), in which systemic inequalities generate a pool of highly exploitable labour. Exploiters often recognise and target these vulnerabilities. Traffickers, for example, commonly recruit in communities facing economic collapse or among migrants with limited employment options (Quinley, 2020; Rahman & Rahman, 2024).

Entrapment occurs through several mechanisms, including deceptive recruitment leading to debt bondage, kidnapping or coercion, sale by family members, or gradual dependency such as debt accumulation at company stores. In each case, structural vulnerabilities are used to secure control over victims. At the moment of entrapment, individuals experience a sharp loss of autonomy. Their freedom is restricted by another’s power. Even at this stage, victims may make constrained decisions that lead into exploitation, such as accepting risky job offers or migrating through informal channels, because their circumstances offer few alternatives. This phase establishes the basic condition of unfreedom: victims come under the control of exploiters and face significant barriers to exit, while the vulnerabilities that enabled their entrapment remain unresolved and are often intensified by exploitation.

Constrained Choices and Survival Strategies

The second phase explains how victims respond to entrapment through constrained choices and survival strategies that stabilise exploitative relations. Once inside an exploitative setting – such as a forced labour camp, trafficked factory, or bonded plantation – victims face ongoing constraints that shape everyday behaviour. Under constant threats of punishment or deprivation, survival becomes the primary concern. Victims adopt strategies to minimise harm and secure basic necessities. These strategies express unfree agency: victims act to protect themselves, yet their actions often align with the exploiter’s demands. Several common forms of constrained choice appear across modern slavery contexts.

Compliance

Many victims respond to violence and intimidation by complying with exploiters’ instructions. Bonded labourers in South Asian brick kilns and carpet production sites report being beaten for mistakes or attempts to resist or escape (Kara, 2012, pp. 91–92, 190). In such conditions, obedience and silence become survival strategies. Workers perceive compliance as the least harmful option available. This behaviour is not genuine consent, but it can create an appearance of cooperation that allows exploitation to continue with less overt resistance.

Ingratiation and Loyalty Displays

In prolonged exploitation, some victims attempt to ingratiate themselves with exploiters by showing loyalty or emotional attachment. In trafficking research this is often described as trauma bonding or “Stockholm Syndrome” (Bailey et al., 2023). Through cycles of abuse and occasional kindness, exploiters foster emotional dependency (Nikkel, 2025). Survivor accounts show that victims may defend or sympathise with captors as a coping mechanism. By appearing loyal, they hope to avoid violence or secure slightly better treatment (Bingham, 2019). While this may improve short-term safety, it strengthens the exploiter’s control and makes outside intervention more difficult.

Competition Among Victims

Exploiters frequently use divide-and-rule tactics to prevent collective resistance. They may reward higher output or punish individuals publicly to encourage rivalry. In some forced labour settings, captors reward selected workers with extra food or punish others in front of the group (Bingham, 2019). These practices generate mistrust and competition. Victims may try to outperform peers or report others to gain favour, simply to survive. Although individually rational, such behaviour weakens solidarity and reduces the likelihood of escape or rebellion.

These constrained choices are practical adaptations to coercive environments. Victims use limited agency to reduce suffering and increase their chances of survival. At the same time, these adaptations reinforce exploitative power structures. Compliance maintains control, loyalty strengthens emotional manipulation, and competition prevents collective action. What protects individuals in the short term can undermine collective resistance in the long term. This tension lies at the centre of unfree agency.

Normalisation and Psychological Entrapment

The third phase describes how sustained coercion can lead to normalisation and psychological entrapment. Over time, externally imposed control may be internalised, and exploitative conditions can begin to appear fixed or unavoidable. Research on trafficking and bonded labour shows that prolonged exposure to coercion narrows perceptions of agency and reshapes how victims understand their situation (Kara, 2012; Zimmerman et al., 2011). Initial shock and resistance may gradually give way to acceptance or fatalism.

First, extended periods in bondage make the possibility of a different life seem distant. Repeated violence and uncertainty weaken expectations that personal action can change one’s circumstances, contributing to a sense of constrained agency (Zimmerman et al., 2011). Exploiters often reinforce this by cultivating fear of outside authorities and by imposing unpredictable rules that generate constant anxiety (Shahadat & Uddin, 2022). Over time, these conditions can produce an internalised sense of powerlessness.

Second, victims may cognitively adapt to extreme conditions. Violence and deprivation that initially provoke resistance can, through repetition, become treated as ordinary aspects of daily life. Survivor research shows that victims often reinterpret their circumstances in ways that make them psychologically tolerable (Kara, 2012; Oram et al., 2012). This coping strategy reduces immediate distress but can also weaken motivation to resist or escape.

Third, intermittent rewards or small concessions may stabilise compliance. Studies of coercive relationships show that alternating punishment with conditional leniency can increase emotional dependence and behavioural conformity (Dutton & Painter, 1993). In exploitative labour settings, such dynamics reduce the need for constant overt force, as victims increasingly regulate their own behaviour to avoid harm.

At this stage, psychological entrapment can restrict action as strongly as physical confinement. Long-term victims may avoid escape attempts even when external barriers are limited because they no longer see escape as realistic or meaningful (Kara, 2012; Zimmerman et al., 2011). Normalisation therefore marks a shift in which enforced compliance is gradually replaced by internally regulated compliance, stabilising exploitative relations without continuous visible coercion.

Normalisation is not permanent. Survivor accounts indicate that external disruption or exposure to alternatives can renew resistance and aspirations for escape (Kara, 2012). However, the longer normalisation continues, the more stable exploitative arrangements become, creating conditions in which victims may begin to sustain the system themselves, as discussed in the next phase.

Unwitting Reproduction of the System

As normalisation deepens, victims may begin to participate in maintaining the exploitative system. They do not act to prolong their suffering. Rather, their behaviour follows a constrained logic of self-preservation. In this phase, victims’ agency becomes directly linked to the continuation of exploitation. The term “unwitting reproduction” captures this paradox: victims do not willingly collaborate, yet their actions contribute to the system’s persistence. Several mechanisms explain how this occurs.

Enforcement and Surveillance

Exploiters often assign certain victims informal authority over others. More experienced or slightly privileged victims may monitor newcomers, enforce rules, or report disobedience. In some forced labour camps and brothels, veteran captives are expected to ensure compliance among newer arrivals. Performing this role may reduce their own exposure to violence or provide small material benefits. For exploiters, this arrangement transfers part of the policing function to victims themselves. Empirical research documents the use of such internal enforcers in trafficking and bonded labour contexts (Bales et al., 2004; Kara, 2017). Although these individuals remain victims, their actions help sustain control over others, blurring the boundary between victim and agent of enforcement.

Peer Pressure and Socialisation

Compliance is also reinforced horizontally among victims. In tightly controlled settings, long-term captives may discourage newcomers from questioning conditions or attempting escape. Research on forced labour shows that workers who have internalised exploitative routines may actively suppress resistance to avoid collective punishment or destabilising fragile survival arrangements (Bales, 2012; Kara, 2012). Over time, shared norms develop that emphasise discretion, distrust of outsiders, and strict adherence to authority. New victims are socialised into these informal rules as a practical strategy for managing risk. This horizontal regulation reduces the need for constant direct coercion by exploiters. While such norms offer short-term protection, they also contribute to the persistence of exploitation.

Economic Dependency and Recruitment

Economic ties can further entrench the system. Victims who earn even small wages may support family members who depend on that income. Families may therefore discourage escape if it threatens their only financial support. In some cases, former or senior victims become recruiters for exploiters, returning to their communities to bring in relatives or neighbours. Studies of trafficking networks show that victims sometimes recruit others under pressure or in exchange for minor benefits (Bales & Soodalter, 2009; LeBaron, 2014a). Shahadat and Uddin (2022) document a similar pattern in a Bangladeshi tea plantation, where long-term workers encouraged their children to accept the same conditions because the plantation represented their only known livelihood. These practices extend exploitation across generations.

Discouragement of External Intervention

Victims may also resist help from outsiders. Fear, mistrust, and previous experiences of betrayal can lead them to deny abuse or provide misleading information to inspectors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs; LeBaron & Lister, 2015; Soundararajan et al., 2018). Exploiters often reinforce this reluctance by warning that contact with authorities will result in punishment or deportation. Outreach practitioners report that victims in brothels or forced street work frequently present their situation as voluntary and respond defensively to assistance (Zimmerman et al., 2011). In incidents such as the UK cockle picker tragedy of 2004, survivors initially avoided authorities out of fear of retaliation or immigration consequences (BBC News, 2004; Pai, 2008). By distancing themselves from potential rescuers, victims unintentionally strengthen the barriers surrounding their exploitation.

Through these mechanisms, victims’ actions perform part of the system’s maintenance work. Exploiters benefit from a structure that is partly upheld by those it controls. The result is a self-sustaining equilibrium. Victims act within severe constraints to survive, yet the cumulative effect of these actions stabilises the exploitative system. This helps explain the persistence of modern slavery. Even when external pressure arises or exploiters withdraw temporarily, internal mechanisms – enforcement roles, shared norms, and dependency networks – can preserve the system until a substantial disruptive force intervenes.

Reinforcement of Structural Conditions

The final phase explains how continued exploitation feeds back into and reinforces the structural conditions that created vulnerability. As exploitation persists, it reproduces and stabilises these conditions through economic, social, and political processes.

Economically, modern slavery deepens poverty at both individual and community levels, reinforcing the structural environment that enables exploitation (LeBaron & Phillips, 2019). Victims often leave exploitative situations poorer than before. Chronic underpayment, debt burdens, and years spent without acquiring transferable skills weaken their long-term prospects (Kara, 2012; Zimmerman et al., 2008). In some settings, exploitation becomes embedded in local economies. Shahadat and Uddin’s (2022) study of Bangladeshi tea plantations shows how decades of abusive labour relations prevented successive generations from building savings or accessing education, effectively confining families to plantation enclaves.

A similar pattern appears in the Leicester garment industry. Investigations into factories supplying Boohoo found wages as low as £3.50 per hour and unsafe working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic (Davies & Kelly, 2020). An independent review confirmed these problems and criticised weak supply chain oversight (Dale, 2022). When production later moved overseas, many migrant workers lost their livelihoods and became dependent on food banks (Dutta et al., 2024). These cases show how exploitation can trap entire labour markets in long-term insecurity.

The reproduction of poverty serves a systemic function. Profitable exploitative models maintain a supply of vulnerable labour and pressure competitors to reduce labour costs. As LeBaron and Phillips (2019) argue, this dynamic creates a structural demand for forced labour in labour-intensive sectors. Survivors often return with debts, poor health, and interrupted education, which increases the risk of renewed exploitation (Kara, 2012; Zimmerman et al., 2008).

Socially, modern slavery reinforces marginalisation and weakens protective institutions. Survivors frequently face stigma that limits reintegration and erodes social support (Zimmerman & Kiss, 2017). At the same time, weak enforcement and regulatory gaps allow exploitative practices to continue. In some contexts, exploiters accumulate economic and political influence through corruption or patronage, strengthening climates of impunity (LeBaron, 2014a). These conditions stabilise exploitative systems and reduce collective capacity to challenge abuse.

Politically and institutionally, the persistence of modern slavery undermines labour standards and the rule of law. When exploitation generates profit with limited consequences, it discourages reform and disadvantages compliant firms (LeBaron, 2015; LeBaron & Phillips, 2019). In regions where bonded labour is common, authorities may come to treat it as economically necessary and enforce laws weakly. Industries dependent on cheap coerced labour often resist policies that would protect workers, such as minimum wage regulation or migrant safeguards. As a result, legal and institutional environments become structured in ways that favour exploitation.

The political invisibility of victims further reduces incentives for intervention. In settings marked by corruption or institutional weakness, state actors may become complicit through neglect or informal alliances with employers. The Leicester case illustrates this dynamic. The government’s Operation Tacit concluded that factories with serious labour violations did not meet the narrow legal definition of modern slavery, which diverted attention from systemic exploitation and allowed brands to distance themselves from responsibility (Dutta et al., 2024). Natarajan et al. (2021) show that such environments persist not only because of weak regulation but also because of political inertia and vested interests.

Together, these economic, social, and political processes connect everyday exploitation to wider institutional outcomes. Practices reproduced in workplaces and communities contribute to persistent poverty, weakened governance, and structural inequality. Exploitation and vulnerability reinforce each other, forming a cycle that is difficult to interrupt. Modern slavery therefore reproduces the conditions of its own existence. Communities affected by exploitation remain poor or become poorer, inequality widens, and exploitative actors grow more entrenched. Children may leave school to compensate for lost income, increasing their exposure to child labour or trafficking. Entire regions can become economically dependent on exploitative industries, while global markets continue to demand low-cost goods produced under coercive conditions.

The cycle is self-reinforcing but not inevitable. Each transition point offers opportunities for intervention: prevention at the stage of structural vulnerability through development and education; rescue and legal action during entrapment; support and rehabilitation during normalisation; collective organisation and safe reporting during unwitting reproduction; and broader economic and social reforms during reinforcement. These intervention points are marked in Figure 1. Breaking the cycle, however, requires sustained external effort and political commitment.

A growing body of scholarship offers guidance across each of these intervention domains. On victim support, research highlights the complex and often fraught nature of post-rescue processes: survivors frequently navigate lengthy legal proceedings with little material or psychological support, and interventions that treat rescue as a singular event rather than an ongoing relational process may inadvertently return victims to conditions of vulnerability (Agarwal, 2025, 2026; Surtees, 2013). On regulatory intervention, mandatory human rights due diligence frameworks represent a meaningful advance over voluntary disclosure requirements, though their effectiveness depends on credible enforcement and genuine protections for worker voice (Deva, 2023; LeBaron et al., 2017). On supply chain governance, evidence shows that human rights protections consistently degrade beyond first-tier suppliers, making it essential to extend monitoring and accountability into the lower tiers of global supply chains where exploitation is most likely to remain hidden (Benstead et al., 2021; Locke et al., 2009; New, 2015).

In summary, the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction explains how modern slavery persists through the interaction of structural forces and unfree agency. Vulnerability leads to entrapment; constrained agency stabilises exploitation; and ongoing exploitation intensifies vulnerability. The framework shifts attention from isolated incidents to a dynamic process in which victims are drawn into sustaining the system that harms them. In the following discussion, I reflect on the theoretical and practical implications of this framework, and how it extends current literature and suggests new directions for combating modern slavery.

Discussion

This article employs the concept of unfree agency (adapted from prior work on constrained agency – Garnett, 2017; Reeves, 2022) to develop the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction, a cyclical framework that explains how victims’ survival actions under duress can inadvertently sustain modern slavery. Building on this analysis, the article advances several theoretical and practical implications for the study of business and society, particularly in relation to modern slavery, organisational ethics, and global supply chains. Specifically, it develops a process theory of modern slavery that shows how constrained survival practices operate as a mechanism linking micro-level agency with the macro-level reproduction of exploitative systems.

Theoretical Contributions and Connections

First, this work contributes a new perspective to modern slavery scholarship by explicitly linking micro-level victim behaviour to macro-level structural perpetuation. In doing so, it complements and extends key works in this domain. For example, LeBaron (2015) argues that unfree labour must be understood as part of broader capitalist relations and social hierarchies, rather than an isolated evil. Building on this foundation, the present framework shows how these structural unfreedoms are not only the backdrop to exploitation but are actively reproduced through an ongoing cycle in which victims’ constrained survival actions function as an intermediary mechanism connecting structure and outcome.

Crane, Soundararajan, et al. (2022), on the other hand, introduce the concept of “hybrid (un)freedom” in a specific context (migrant worker hostels), demonstrating that conditions of freedom and unfreedom can coexist and that binary categories are insufficient. This article generalises a similar ethos: modern slavery is seen not as a binary state but as an evolving process with feedback loops. It goes further by theorising the active role of the victims within that process – something Crane, Soundararajan, et al.’s (2022) institutional analysis touches on indirectly (e.g., workers adapting to hostel rules) but does not model explicitly. In essence, where Crane, Soundararajan, et al. (2022) problematise the state of hybrid unfreedom, this article illuminates the process of how unfreedom regenerates itself through victim and perpetrator interactions.

By engaging with these debates, the article positions unfree agency as a conceptual link between micro-level experience and macro-level structural dynamics. It provides a framework for explaining how structure and agency co-produce outcomes in contexts of extreme coercion, thereby responding to longstanding calls to integrate lived experience with structural analysis (Banerjee, 2021; Caruana et al., 2021). In particular, the article develops a focused theoretical account of how constrained survival practices may contribute to the reproduction of exploitation without attributing intentional responsibility to victims. This perspective helps clarify the mechanisms through which exploitative systems persist despite repeated anti-slavery interventions.

The cyclical process framework also contributes to broader organisational theory by drawing attention to a form of institutional maintenance that operates from below. Institutional research has traditionally focused on how relatively powerful actors engage in the creation, maintenance, or disruption of institutions (Lawrence et al., 2011). The analysis developed here suggests that disempowered actors may also, unintentionally, perform maintenance work on oppressive institutions. In the context of modern slavery, practices such as compliance, loyalty displays, and peer-policing can inadvertently stabilise the system that constrains victims. This dynamic highlights how adaptive responses to oppression may contribute to institutional persistence without implying endorsement or deliberate support. More broadly, it suggests the importance of exploring how everyday coping practices can reproduce structural inequalities. A related dynamic has been noted in critical management studies, where employees may become complicit in their own exploitation under hegemonic corporate cultures, albeit in far less extreme forms (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). The present analysis thus illustrates an extreme manifestation of this broader phenomenon in the context of modern slavery.

A further connection worth making explicit is with the growing literature on institutional deflection in the context of modern slavery. Crane (2013) introduced this concept to describe how enterprises that practise slavery are able to insulate themselves from institutional pressures toward isomorphism – deflecting or neutralising the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive forces that would otherwise compel conformity with anti-slavery norms. Phung et al. (2025) extend this analysis by documenting the specific ground-level rationalisations that business actors deploy to deflect institutional responsibility for combating modern slavery in supply chains. The present article makes a complementary but distinct contribution to this conversation. By revealing how mechanisms rooted in victims’ constrained survival behaviours – rather than in perpetrators’ deliberate strategies or firms’ organisational rationalisations – can also serve to absorb and neutralise pressures against modern slavery, it uncovers a previously overlooked dimension of deflection. This dimension is unintentional and operates from below, through the coerced actions of those with the least power, rather than being orchestrated by the powerful actors who typically populate institutional analyses. The implication is that institutional pressures against modern slavery face deflection from multiple, simultaneous directions – including from within the population of victims themselves – which helps to explain the remarkable resilience of exploitative systems even in the face of growing anti-slavery efforts.

Nuances of Consent, Agency, and Blame

A significant theoretical implication of this work is the need to refine how consent and agency are conceptualised in morally fraught situations. The discussion here shows that consent is not a binary category; rather, it exists on a spectrum that includes forms of coerced or illusory consent that traditional legal and ethical frameworks struggle to capture. For instance, when a worker signs a contract under conditions of desperation and misinformation, that agreement may appear legally valid while remaining morally compromised. The concept of unfree agency directs attention away from the surface act of agreement and toward the underlying context and capacity for meaningful choice. In doing so, the article aligns with broader critiques of liberal models of consent that overlook structural power asymmetries (Groeneveld & Rentschler, 2023). For business ethics, this implies that it is insufficient for firms to justify exploitative arrangements by claiming that workers “chose” their employment if those workers lacked genuinely acceptable alternatives due to structural unfreedoms. From the perspective of the liberation ethics framework I called for in the conclusion, consent that emerges from conditions of oppression cannot be treated as fully morally valid consent.

The article also contributes to ongoing debates concerning the relationship between victim agency and victim-blaming. It demonstrates that acknowledging victims as agents does not require attributing moral blame to them. This distinction is achieved by analytically separating the causal origins of an action from responsibility for its consequences. Victims’ compliance and adaptive behaviours are caused by coercive structures and material constraints, whereas moral responsibility for the harms produced by exploitation rests with those who design, benefit from, or sustain those coercive systems. In practical terms, this distinction calls for careful use of language in anti-slavery research and advocacy. Descriptions should recognise victims as acting subjects rather than passive objects, while simultaneously foregrounding the structural forces that shape and constrain their agency. Statements such as “enslaved people chose to stay,” for example, require immediate contextualisation in terms of blocked exits, threats of retaliation, and the absence of viable alternatives. The framework developed in this article provides analytical tools for explaining the structural conditions underlying behaviours that might otherwise be misinterpreted as voluntary complicity.

Building on this critique of binary consent, a further implication concerns the need to reconceptualise agency and consent in exploitative labour contexts. Rather than treating agency as an all-or-nothing property, the analysis supports understanding agency as existing along a continuum from relatively free to highly constrained. Victims of modern slavery exercise agency, but within severe limits that fundamentally shape the meaning of their choices. Scholars should therefore exercise caution when interpreting workers’ apparent acquiescence in harsh labour conditions. Agreeing to work excessive hours for sub-minimum wages, for example, should not automatically be regarded as genuine consent when the available alternatives involve starvation or homelessness. This perspective aligns with arguments by labour ethicists that extreme desperation undermines the validity of consent (Arnold & Bowie, 2007; Wertheimer, 1996) and points toward ethical frameworks capable of accounting for degrees of unfreedom. Future work in business ethics may benefit from integrating insights from vulnerability theory (Fineman, 2008) and capability approaches (Sen, 1999) to better evaluate when decisions can be considered substantively voluntary. By developing and embedding the concept of unfree agency (Garnett, 2017; Reeves, 2022), this article invites a refinement of organisational theories that often assume levels of autonomy unavailable to actors operating in coercive environments (Alvesson & Willmott, 2012; Crane, 2013, p. 51).

Insights for Anti-Slavery Practice

On a practical level, the cyclical framework suggests that effective anti-slavery interventions must be multi-layered and coordinated across the different phases of the cycle rather than targeted at a single point. Interventions that focus only on one stage risk being undermined by the feedback dynamics that connect the phases. For example, rescue and legal action that interrupt situations of active entrapment and exploitation may offer immediate relief, but they are unlikely to produce lasting change if the structural drivers of vulnerability are left intact. Without parallel efforts to address the reinforcing conditions that reproduce poverty, marginalisation, and institutional weakness, survivors may return to environments that recreate the very vulnerabilities that enabled their exploitation (International Labour Organization, 2024; Surtees, 2013). Conversely, prevention strategies that concentrate solely on reducing initial vulnerability, while neglecting those already trapped in ongoing exploitation, leave many victims without meaningful pathways to exit or recovery.

The framework is particularly instructive in highlighting the challenges associated with the phase of unwitting reproduction. At this stage, behaviours shaped by coercion and psychological entrapment can easily be misinterpreted by authorities and practitioners. Victims who enforce rules among peers, deny abuse, or appear to cooperate with exploiters may be mistakenly perceived as willing participants or minor perpetrators. In practice, this misrecognition has contributed to situations in which trafficking victims were arrested or treated primarily as offenders (Gallagher, 2010; Zimmerman et al., 2011). The concept of unfree agency (as developed in this article) underscores that such behaviours should be understood as products of constraint rather than as evidence of genuine complicity. Training for police, labour inspectors, and frontline NGOs could draw explicitly on this framework to improve victim identification and response. For instance, when inspectors encounter workers who strongly deny any problems in settings known for forced labour, this reaction should be interpreted cautiously as a possible manifestation of fear, dependency, or normalisation dynamics rather than taken at face value.

A further implication concerns the central role of rehabilitation in disrupting the psychological dimensions of the cycle. Survivors frequently emerge carrying shame, internalised blame, or a sense of compromised agency instilled by exploitative conditions (Zimmerman et al., 2011). Effective aftercare should therefore combine material assistance with psychological support that helps survivors situate their experiences within the broader structural constraints that shaped their actions (Zimmerman & Pocock, 2013). By reframing survival behaviours as responses to coercion rather than personal failure, such support can help restore a sense of agency and future orientation. Importantly, empowerment initiatives must extend beyond individuals to the families and communities to which survivors return. The cycle model shows that these social environments can either reproduce vulnerability or support durable exit from exploitation. Programmes that create alternative livelihoods, strengthen community resources, and reduce economic dependency can interrupt the feedback loops that otherwise draw new individuals into hazardous or exploitative work. In this sense, rehabilitation is not merely a post-rescue service but a structural intervention aimed at preventing the re-emergence of the conditions that sustain modern slavery.

Policy and Corporate Implications

For policymakers, this article reinforces calls for stronger regulatory frameworks that do not rely solely on voluntary corporate social responsibility or consumer pressure. The earlier critique of the UK MSA’s transparency approach illustrates this limitation: simply requiring companies to disclose risks is unlikely to disrupt the deeper cycle if ground-level conditions of vulnerability and silence remain unchanged (Islam & Van Staden, 2022). More robust measures, including mandatory due diligence, protection for worker whistleblowers, and meaningful consequences where forced labour is identified, would target structural drivers rather than relying primarily on reputational incentives. Encouragingly, recent developments – such as mandatory human rights due diligence laws in Europe (Deva, 2023) – move in this direction. However, such measures are unlikely to be effective without credible support for worker voice and representation, because where workers lack voice, exploitation remains hidden and enforcement mechanisms are easily neutralised (LeBaron et al., 2017). The nature of unfree agency further complicates this challenge: conventional worker voice mechanisms, including unions and formal grievance systems, are often absent, restricted, or co-opted. Policy responses therefore require context-sensitive alternatives, including protected grievance channels, worker committees, and community-based or secure digital reporting platforms in contexts where independent unions are weak or prohibited (Anner, 2017; Barrientos & Smith, 2007; Ford et al., 2016; Locke et al., 2009).

For businesses, the possibility that victims may appear complicit implies that auditing and monitoring must be designed to look beyond surface compliance. A lack of complaints or the appearance of cooperative workers should not be interpreted as evidence that conditions are satisfactory; it may reflect fear or coercion so pervasive that speaking is too risky (Stevenson & Cole, 2018). Unethical suppliers can relatively easily coach workers to present rehearsed narratives and deny abuse to auditors (Soundararajan et al., 2018). Auditors and the corporations that employ them therefore require training and protocols to detect subtle indicators of coercion, including inconsistencies in accounts, signs of rehearsed responses, restricted off-site access to workers, and the absence of safe communication channels. Practical strategies include off-site interviews in secure environments, unannounced inspections, and partnerships with trusted local organisations that can help create conditions in which workers feel able to speak without fear (Stevenson & Cole, 2018). More broadly, where workers themselves discourage external intervention, monitoring will remain ineffective unless firms invest in trust-building engagement and worker-centred due diligence that extends beyond audit checklists, including participatory risk identification, credible grievance mechanisms, and sustained collaboration with local stakeholders and communities (LeBaron et al., 2017; Locke, 2013).

Limitations and Future Research

As a conceptual contribution, the framework developed in this article requires empirical elaboration and critical testing. Future research should move beyond illustrative case application and instead explore the causal mechanisms proposed in the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction. Longitudinal and comparative case studies (George & Bennett, 2005) would be particularly valuable for tracing how structural vulnerability, constrained agency, and feedback processes unfold over time. Ethnographic and survivor-centred participatory approaches (Burawoy, 1998) could help capture the lived experience of unfree agency and illuminate how victims interpret and navigate constrained choices in situ. Such work would allow researchers to assess the boundary conditions of the framework: whether all five phases manifest consistently across sectors and regions, or whether contextual factors produce distinct trajectories or additional mechanisms.

A related avenue concerns the operationalisation of unfree agency as a continuum rather than a binary condition. Future research could investigate whether degrees of constrained agency can be systematically identified and how they relate to outcomes such as resistance, escape, or reintegration. Integrating insights from capability theory (Alkire, 2005; Robeyns, 2005) and labour process research may enable the development of empirical indicators that capture variations in substantive freedom. Such work would refine the conceptual precision of unfree agency and clarify how structural and psychological constraints interact.

The role of digital technologies and global connectivity represents another important extension of the framework. Emerging research on surveillance capitalism and digital labour shows that technologies simultaneously create new possibilities for worker communication and new tools of monitoring and control (Wood et al., 2019; Zuboff, 2019). Investigating how mobile communication, social media, and digital surveillance reshape mechanisms of isolation, enforcement, and resistance could update the cyclical framework and reveal new intervention points. In particular, future studies should explore how technological infrastructures reconfigure power relations within exploitative labour systems.

Comparative historical research offers a further opportunity to test the temporal scope of the concept of unfree agency. Analyses that place contemporary modern slavery alongside historical forms of slavery and bonded labour could clarify which elements of the cycle reflect enduring structural dynamics and which are specific to contemporary political-economic conditions (Blackburn, 2013; Patterson, 1982). Such comparisons would improve theoretical understanding of how legal, institutional, and economic transformations interact with cycles of exploitation over time.

Taken together, these directions suggest that the present framework should be viewed as a starting point for an iterative research programme. By empirically examining the mechanisms through which constrained agency contributes to the persistence of exploitation, future scholarship can refine the framework and improve its explanatory power. Such work is essential for developing interventions that address not only the visible manifestations of modern slavery but also the adaptive processes that allow exploitative systems to reproduce themselves.

Conclusion

This article has argued that modern slavery is sustained not only through external coercion but through a dynamic interaction between structural vulnerability and constrained human agency. By developing the concept of unfree agency and the Cycle of Victim-Exploitation Reproduction, it shows how survival strategies adopted under conditions of extreme unfreedom can inadvertently stabilise exploitative systems. Modern slavery therefore appears not as a static condition imposed by a few deviant actors, but as a self-reinforcing process in which structural inequality and constrained action continually reproduce one another. Recognising this process challenges simplified narratives of passive victimhood and underscores the importance of analysing how exploitation persists through everyday practices shaped by necessity and fear.

This perspective helps explain why many well-intentioned anti-slavery efforts struggle to produce lasting change. When interventions address only visible abuses while leaving underlying vulnerabilities untouched, exploitative arrangements tend to re-emerge. Ending modern slavery therefore requires more than rescue operations or compliance frameworks; it requires sustained attention to the conditions that restrict people’s real options and keep them trapped in cycles of dependency and fear.

To conclude, I call for a “liberation ethics” perspective that places the expansion of substantive freedom at the centre of how business and society confront modern slavery. Liberation ethics centres the expansion of real freedoms for those with the least agency. It demands that we evaluate business decisions, policies, and even consumer habits through a simple but demanding question: does this increase or decrease the substantive freedom of vulnerable workers? For example, does a new supplier auditing programme merely create paperwork, or does it empower workers to speak up and exit abusive situations? Does a government’s immigration policy inadvertently trap migrant workers in fearful silence, or does it protect their rights irrespective of status?

By asking such questions, stakeholders can align their strategies with the ultimate goal – not just freeing individuals from bondage, but ensuring they have the capabilities to live freely thereafter. In the spirit of Sen’s (1999) capabilities approach, liberation ethics evaluates practices not only by whether they improve immediate conditions, but by whether they expand a person’s range of meaningful choices and capabilities. This reframes the moral question from “Is this better than nothing?” to “Does this action broaden the victim’s genuine ability to choose and control their life?”

Seen through this lens, anti-slavery efforts must be judged by their capacity to widen real freedoms rather than by formal compliance alone. Corporate initiatives should be assessed in terms of whether they create safe channels for worker voice and reduce dependency, not simply whether they generate reports or certifications. Policy frameworks should be evaluated by whether they decrease vulnerability and strengthen protection for those at risk. A liberation ethics perspective therefore connects ethical evaluation directly to the lived realities of those most affected by exploitation.

Modern slavery persists in part because exploitative systems adapt and embed themselves within ordinary economic relations. By integrating a process account of exploitation with an ethical orientation centred on liberation, this article contributes to a more comprehensive approach to ending modern slavery – one that seeks not only to interrupt abuse, but to expand the horizon of real freedom for those most affected by it.