As Global Slavery Increases, Corporations Attempt to Respond

In Australia last week during a worldwide forum, representatives from government, private sectors, and civil societies in 48 different countries agreed to do better to eradicate various forms of slavery.

“The 15-year-old Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime (often referred to as the “Bali Process”) held a high level meeting in the western Australian city of Perth in an attempt to develop global standards for more ethical and transparent labor practices within companies’ global supply chains.  According to Reuters, participants including retailing giant Walmart, the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui and Chinese e-commerce website JD.com participated in the forum, and agreed to take more action in order to eliminate modern slavery.”

A number of public companies, including Walmart, define anti-slavery policies within their codes of conduct or their ethics statements. For example, Walmart expects employees who witness any signs of slavery, forced labor, human trafficking, or child labor to report those behaviors to the organization’s global ethics team.

Mitsui is a company that sends out regularly updated statements on human rights explaining how they deal with accusations of slavery that my be happening in their supply chains.