Tag: Labour Exploitation

Global Supply Chains: 4 Principals Adopted Against Modern Slavery

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The UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA have made progress in the movement to expel modern slavery and labour exploitation from global supply chains.

These five partner countries have created a set of 4 principles designed for nations all over the world to adopt, in order to promote ethical supply chain compliance within their jurisdictions. The principles are aimed at policy level, addressing both public and private sector procurement, supply chains, recruitment and encourages the need for cooperation between such actors.

The four principles are as follows:

Governments should take steps to prevent and address human trafficking in government procurement practices

  • analyse, develop and implement measures to identify, prevent and reduce the risk of human trafficking in government procurement supply chains
  • provide tools and incentives and adopt risk assessment policies and procedures that require their procurement officers and contractors to assess the nature and extent of potential exposure to human trafficking in their supply chains
  • take targeted action, including adopting appropriate due diligence processes, to identify, prevent, mitigate, remedy, and account on how they address human trafficking

Governments should encourage the private sector to prevent and address human trafficking in its supply chains

  • work in partnership with business, workers and survivors to set clear expectations for private sector entities on their responsibility to conduct appropriate due diligence in their supply chains to identify, prevent and mitigate human trafficking
  • provide tools and incentives to the private sector to encourage meaningful action and public reporting of their efforts, including through programmes policies or legislation

Governments should advance responsible recruitment policies and practices

  • advance responsible recruitment practices, including by implementing polices that incentivise and support responsible practice, and by support initiatives such as the ‘Employer Pays Principle’
  • contribute to the growing knowledge base of promising practices for protecting workers from fraud and exploitation in the recruitment process

Governments should strive for harmonisation

  • make reasonable efforts to share information and work with other committed governments to align existing and proposed laws, regulations and polices to combat human trafficking in global supply chains

 

The UK,  leading global efforts in anti-slavery policy, is encouraging governments at the UN General Assembly to adopt these principles. By leveraging the combined $600 billion purchasing power of the partnered nations there is the capital to influence high-level actors in both public and private sectors.

The principles provide a clear and progressive framework for cooperating governments to aim towards. The major drawback, however, is the lack of enforcement of these principles, which in many instances is controlled by  legislation. However, for these principles to be effective in practice rather than theory, strict and coherent sanctions are critical. The further challenge is to address cross border transactions, and encourage non-cooperative countries that produce the majority of global slavery statistics to adopt and enforce such principles.

Combatting the Vulnerability of Refugees Against Labour Exploitation

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Image Credit: Deutsche Welle - Syrian Refugee Working at BMW
Image Credit: Deutsche Welle – Syrian Refugee Working at BMW

In many cases, migrants and refugees make vulnerable targets for exploitation within their host countries as they are often in positions of desperation and vulnerability. In many cases their skill sets or education are not suited to those needed in their place of settlement, forcing them into poor and inappropriate work conditions, hard labour or making them vulnerable to recruitment by traffickers to exploitation.

The UNHCR, OECD and other international agencies are working on an ‘Action Plan’ to overcome the issue of refugee employment. This plan aims to integrate refugees into the labour market by overcoming the issues and creating a strategy to identify the skills that can actively contribute to the economy of the host nation.

Through research and interviews, having secure and safe employment is the top contributor to integration in a new society, which protects them from the potential for labour exploitation. Although each host destination has subjective conditions and labour requirements, the action plan is a holistic and broad framework composed of 10 steps:

  • Action 1 – Navigate the administrative framework
  • Action 2 – Provide employers with sufficient legal certainty
  • Action 3 – Identify and verify refugees’ skills
  • Action 4 – Developing skills for job-readiness
  • Action 5 – Match refugee talent with employers’ needs
  • Action 6 – Provide equal opportunities in recruitment and combat stereotypes
  • Action 7 – Prepare the working environment
  • Action 8 – Enable long-term employability
  • Action 9 – Make the business case for hiring refugees
  • Action 10 – Coordinate actions between all stakeholders

Whether in refuge from conflict, environmental or economic hardship, 65 million people globally have been forcibly displaced from their homes, of which refugees make up 25.5 million. Due to the nature of globalisation, these rates are increasing, along with the frequency and types of labour exploitation of refugees and vulnerable populations.

For the full Action Plan, read here.  

Men Are Vulnerable To Trafficking As Labour Exploitation Rates Prove Higher Than Sexual Exploitation

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7th Annual Report: G R E T A Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings

The Council of Europe has released a report through the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) which suggests labour exploitation is now the most significant form of trafficking in Europe, reflecting the rising trend in recent years. Alarmingly, it has taken over rates of sexual exploitation in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Cyprus, Georgia and Serbia.

Due to this shift, men are the most identified victims of human trafficking, however women and children are still severely affected. ‘Men are often exploited in industries including agriculture, construction and fisheries whereas women tend to be exploited in more isolated settings such as domestic or care work – where they are sometimes victims of both labour and sexual exploitation.’

The primary cause of these new ​figures points to the previous underestimation of labour exploitation against sexual exploitation rates, as there is relatively less targeted legislation, and there have been few successful prosecutions and convictions. With both forms of exploitation, victims fear reprisals ​from traffickers, ​which makes data collection difficult, as well as impacting on low conviction rates.

For the full 7th Annual Report: G R E T A Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, read here.