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 Modern Slavery Report highlights Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)'s efforts during 2017-18 to disrupt, prosecute and improve their response to offending. Findings show a 27 per cent rise in the number of suspects charged with modern slavery and hu...Read More
Labor migration is currently the most common predicate action leading to human trafficking and forced labor, and debt bondage is the most common indicator of forced labor. Based on Migrasia’s first hand experience with directly assisting thousands...Read More
Abstract Objectives The article objectives were (1) to systematically map the contours of the European evidence base on labour trafficking, identifying its key characteristics, coverage, gaps, strengths and weaknesses and (2) to synthesise key scie...Read More
The British Red Cross and UNHCR report, At risk: exploitation and the UK asylum system, finds that people seeking asylum in the UK are at risk of exploitation and have been exploited in the UK. When people are forced to flee, they leave behind m...Read More
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