Sugarcane is one of the largest agricultural commodities in the world. It can be found in everyday food and beverage items such as cereals, yogurts, soft drinks, and flavored coffees. It is typically manually harvested, often by migrants and rural workers, with little education. Sugarcane...
Poor working conditions in leather supply chains, as well as practices conducive to forced labor (e.g., lack of worker contracts and forced overtime), have been well documented by human and labor rights organizations over the past years. Today we published a case study examining how...
Following the publication of our 2016 apparel & footwear benchmark, today we are pleased to release its accompanying Resource and Action Guide. The guide looks at all seven themes by which companies were benchmarked and highlights practices and resources that companies can use to improve...
The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre announced today the launch of a new Modern Slavery Registry website. The site captures statements made by companies under the UK Modern Slavery Act on what they are doing to eradicate modern slavery from their operations and supply...
Last year, KnowTheChain identified three sectors with the highest risk of forced labor in their supply chains and benchmarked 60 companies within those sectors. It was the first analysis of its kind, focusing specifically on forced labor risks and the corporate policies and practices developed...
Last year, we released our Food & Beverage Benchmark (F&B) report on the efforts of companies in the sector to mitigate forced labor in their supply chains. While the benchmark found that there is growing awareness among F&B companies surrounding the issue of forced labor, it...
With investigative journalism and legislation on forced labor and human trafficking on the rise, forced labor risks can translate into concrete negative impacts for investors, both reputational and financial. As an example, in 2015, the US marine-services company Signal International LLC went bankrupt after having...
This week, Corban Addison, the best selling author of A Walk Across the Sun and The Tears of Dark Water, releases his fourth book looking at human trafficking. Unlike his previous books, A Harvest of Thorns takes an in-depth look at the complex problem of...
The ILO estimates that globally there are currently around 21 million men, women and children in situations of forced labour, trafficking, and modern slavery. Almost no industry sector is exempt and forced labour can be found in all locations - generating around $150 billion in...
KnowTheChain released its third and final benchmark report of 2016 today, which ranks 20 of the largest apparel and footwear companies on their efforts to address forced labor in their supply chains. The average overall score of the 20 companies that were ranked across seven measurement...
