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
The paper presents the findings of a study on external policy measures adopted by the European Union and like-minded partners to address modern slavery in third countries. The study is intended to support the European Parliament in monitoring E...Read More
This report discusses the realities of accessing victim compensation under the anti-trafficking legal frameworks in Thailand and Cambodia. The report consists of desk-based research that reviews the current victim compensation systems in both countri...Read More
Each year, thousands of refugees and migrants are subjected to horrific abuse as they move along different routes within the Sahel and East Africa, and towards North Africa and sometimes on to Europe.3 This includes being subjected to repeated gende...Read More
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