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.
Edited by Genevieve LeBaron and Neil Howard. This is the second volume of the series Beyond Trafficking and Slavery Short Course. There is a growing and sober awareness among international policymakers and within global civil society that hum...Read More
This report is a summary of a consultation into research priorities on modern slavery for the Policy and Evidence Centre on Modern Slavery and Human Rights. The consultation was carried out between July and October 2020, overseen by a Working Gro...Read More
Despite increased awareness and massive investments in combating human trafficking, there is still limited knowledge about traffickers – who they are, why they engage in trafficking, and how they operate. This Special Issue of Anti-Traffic...Read More
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
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