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.
The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017 and is accurate as of July 11, 2018. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may be revealed to the National Hotline over time. Conseq...Read More
Research and analysis conducted by Katarina Schwarz (University of Nottingham) and Jean Allain (Monash University). To assess the extent to which slavery and related forms of human exploitation have been prohibited in domestic law, this project ...Read More
It is clear that the Act is an innovative piece of legislation that has influenced parliaments across the world in efforts to combat the global evil of modern slavery. Other countries are following our lead, so it is of the utmost importance that we...Read More
Data on the Number of people referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) as potential victims of modern slavery in the UK has increased year-on-year. The number for referrals rose by 36% from 2017 2018 and buy for their 52% in 2019 the second ...Read More
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