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

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.