Under the regime of private company or multi-stakeholder voluntary codes of conduct and industry social auditing, workers have absorbed low wages and unsafe and abusive conditions; labour leaders and union members have become the targets of both government and factory harassment and violence; and trade union power has waned. Nowhere have these private systems of codes and audits so clearly failed to protect workers as in Bangladesh’s apparel industry. However, international labour groups and Bangladeshi unions have succeeded in mounting a challenge to voluntarism in the global economy, persuading more than 180 companies to make a binding and enforceable commitment to workers’ safety in an agreement with 12 unions.
The extent to which this Bangladesh Accord will be able to influence the entrenched global regime of voluntary codes and weak trade unions remains an open question. But if the Accord can make progress in Bangladesh, it can help to inspire similar efforts in other countries and in other industries.
Abstract Through an empirical study, this article explores the overall profile of female traffickers of children in China and their role and performance in the trafficking processes. Its contribution to the human trafficking literature lies in i...Read More
By Tom Sabo, Adam Pilz, SAS Institute Inc. Abstract The US Department of State (DOS) and other humanitarian agencies have a vested interest in assessing and preventing human trafficking in its many forms. A subdivision within the DOS releases pub...Read More
The Fondation Scelles is publishing its 5th Global Report. Since 2012, year after year, this “world tour” of sexual exploitation aims to detect and anticipate its evolutions. What can we see today? Never have the factors of vulnerability been so...Read More
The decreasing cost of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and increasing mainstreaming of new technologies have resulted in wider application of digital tools to address global problems such as human trafficking and forced labour. Th...Read More
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