Source : Procurement Leaders
A US consortium has developed a framework designed to combat human trafficking and forced labour across corporate supply chains.
The initiative has been proposed by recruitment company ManpowerGroup and Verite, a human rights and labour rights NGO and comes as the International Organization for Migration estimated that more than 214 million people across the globe live outside their countries of origin, and migrant workers and their families account for 90% of all international migration.
Such movement of workers has become increasingly important to the prosperity of the global economy, and to the livelihood of individual workers seeking opportunity. As more individuals move for work, and more employers seek global talent, many migrants find themselves entangled in a "grey" market run by unscrupulous brokers and employers.
"Today’s environment requires businesses to be global and talent to be mobile," said David Arkless, ManpowerGroup president of global corporate and government affairs. "Leading firms already commit to high ethical standards, but too many other operators exploit workers through recruitment debt, fraudulent contract substitution, and other forms of abuse. And even well-intentioned businesses face reputational risk from unwittingly becoming entangled with unethical partners."
The ManpowerGroup and Verite ethical framework offers a checklist of specific "standards of ethical practice" for firms involved in cross-border recruitment of workers, which are designed to protect those workers against specific patterns of vulnerability and abuse.
These standards are to be backed up by a verification system that certifies business compliance and provides key information for leveraging the influence of consumer groups, regulators, and other third parties.
Dan Viederman, chief executive officer of Verite, said, "The current cross-border recruitment marketplace has almost no transparency and limited ability to enforce standards. Our framework makes it easy for ethical businesses to understand what they need to do, and easy for them to point to like-minded firms who they want to work with. The ultimate goal is for ethical behaviour to be rewarded."