UK brands are increasingly judged on who makes their clothes. Here's what the Modern Slavery Act expects — and why a short, transparent supply chain makes it easy.
The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires larger businesses to publish an annual statement setting out the steps they take to ensure slavery and human trafficking aren't in their operations or supply chains. Even if your brand sits under the turnover threshold, your retail and wholesale buyers almost certainly ask the same questions in their due diligence. Either way, you need to know — and be able to show — who makes your knitwear.
A credible statement rests on visibility. A long, multi-tier chain routed through brokers and sub-contractors is hard to see into — and hard to vouch for. A short, single-site supply chain, where the garment is knitted and finished in one named factory you can visit, is far easier to map, audit and stand behind. The structure of your sourcing is itself a due-diligence answer.
Where exactly is production done? Can you visit? A real factory you can walk through beats a trading company that won't name its maker.
Is the work done in-house or sub-contracted out? Unannounced sub-contracting is exactly the blind spot the Act is concerned with.
Supplier information and traceability you can reference in your own statement and pass to buyers who ask.
Kiwi Giyim is a single flat-knit factory in Gaziantep — 22 machines, a 50+ in-house team, founder-run since 2010, no agency layer. Production happens where we say it does, and you're welcome to visit. We're a manufacturer, not a legal adviser, and your statement remains your responsibility — but a short, transparent chain is the easiest foundation to build it on.
Send us your programme — or arrange a visit. You'll work directly with the founder, in one named factory, with the traceability your Modern Slavery statement needs.