by Susan Ariel Aaronson and Ethan Wham

Executive Summary

Supply chain initiatives wed government mandates delineating the “right to know” with corporate governance and voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. They are an attempt by government officials (at the behest of their citizens) to mandate companies to be transparent about their supply chain practices in the hopes that firms will then act in a responsible manner. In the US and the EU, policymakers have put in place four supply chain transparency initiatives: two to ensure that a supply chain does not contain conflict minerals and two to ensure that companies divulge slave labour in their supply chain. The conflict minerals supply chain initiatives only tangentially address labour rights, but the two supply chain anti-slavery initiatives directly tackle forced labour issues.

However, the architects of the two supply chain anti-slavery initiatives were influenced by corporate response to Dodd-Frank conflict minerals. These initiatives are relatively new and hence it may be too early to assess their impact. However, the authors reviewed the findings of civil society groups, consulting firms, and researchers in order to provide an initial assessment. In general, these investigators found that these supply chain initiatives:

  • are expensive for firms to implement;
  • have not led the bulk of firms to report, and the ones that do make broad statements and general commitments;
  • require transparency about supply chain practices but say little about how firms should behave when they find slave or trafficked labour;
  • do not yet appear to have changed corporate behavior, although they have led firms to discuss how to address supply chain problems;
  • can help governments and activists monitor those firms that do report but firms are not providing the right kind or sufficient information to facilitate effective monitoring; and
  • can do little to empower workers.

post

page

attachment

revision

nav_menu_item

custom_css

customize_changeset

oembed_cache

user_request

wp_block

wp_template

wp_template_part

wp_global_styles

wp_navigation

wp_font_family

wp_font_face

acf-taxonomy

acf-post-type

acf-field-group

acf-field

ai1ec_event

exactmetrics_note

Discouraging the demand that fosters trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation
Publications

This Occasional Paper highlights the importance of addressing the demand that fosters trafficking for sexual exploitation, in particular the exploitation of the prostitution of others. In doing so, it puts a spotlight on the role of demand in encour...Read More

Eliminating Child Labour in Malawi
Publications

British American Tobacco co‐founded the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT) in October 2000 and launched its pilot project in Malawi. This paper investigates the tobacco industry in Malawi. ...Read More

National Hotline 2019 Oregon State Report
Graphics & InfographicsPublications

The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019 and is accurate as of July 30, 2020. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may revealed to the National Hotline over time. Consequen...Read More

Supporting Bright Futures – Young Women and Girls and Labour Migration in South-East Asia and the Pacific
Publications

At first glance, this research publication may seem niche, perhaps relevant only to “fringe” aspects of international migration. Historically, we know from decades of studies, data collection and analysis that there has been a strong bias toward...Read More