Fat profits on the one hand, starvation wages on the other: The inequalities along the supply chains for our food are enormous. Dieter Schwarz, owner of Lidl and Kaufland, earns the annual income of a farmworker on a pineapple plantation in Costa Rica every six seconds. While German supermarkets earned record profits during the pandemic, farmworkers on the plantations supplying produce for the supermarket shelves had to work for wages that barely suffice to feed a family.
Especially precarious is the situation facing migrant workers in agriculture. Without them, the supply chains for numerous foodstuffs would collapse. For a number of products, migrant workers represent half the workforce or more. Many of them leave their homeland to earn a living as seasonal workers. In return, they often must accept exploitative working conditions. For many migrants, these conditions nevertheless amount to the best of several bad options, given the difficult circumstances in their homelands.
Thousands of children affected by modern slavery are being failed by the system. There are at least 5,000 children of modern slavery victims in the UK and the majority are not getting the support they need, with many more potentially lost in the ...Read More
The due diligence expectations contained in the OECD Guidelines and United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGPs) have always, since their inception in 2011, been intended to take a risk-based approach that includes the full “value chain” of busines...Read More
The risk of forced labour in global supply chains remains one of the most significant human rights issues for companies – and their investors – worldwide. At least 25 million people are currently estimated to be victims of forced labour, coerced...Read More
This chapter documents the research carried out in the garment and textile sector. Individual and group interviews were carried out with 26 women trade union leaders and union representatives from unions in four garment producing countries: El Salva...Read More
2025 © Copyright, RESPECT International. All Rights Reserved. Website Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
