Tag: human trafficking

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Regulatory Ramblings

Regulatory Ramblings: Episode 59 – Four Decades Fighting Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery – A Diplomat Reflects with Matt Friedman

As a former US and United Nations diplomat, Matthew Friedman has been a true warrior on the frontlines against modern slavery and sex trafficking for over four decades. He is an international human trafficking expert and the CEO of The Mekong Club, a non-governmental organization comprised of Hong Kong’s leading businesses that have joined forces to help end all forms of modern slavery.

The Mekong Club is very active in the ESG space and is well-versed in identifying red flags and appropriate metrics to gauge anti-human trafficking compliance.

Previously, he worked for the United States Agency for International Development and the UN in over 40 countries. Matt offers technical advice to numerous governments, banks, and corporations working to eliminate all forms of modern slavery and authorizes fifteen books. In 2017, he won Asia’s prestigious “Communicator of the Year” Gold Award.

His postings have taken him all over Asia, from Nepal to Bangladesh and Thailand. The Mekong Club works with private sector banks, manufacturers, retailers, and the hospitality sectors to do what they need to do in the fight against human trafficking and slavery.

The topic of modern slavery – more colloquially referred to as human trafficking – is a bleak one. In this episode of Regulatory Ramblings, Matt chats with host Ajay Shamdasani about what the global banking and financial institutions and multinational corporations can do about the matter.

The problem indirectly affects us all: estimates are that 50 million people in the world are currently in some form of slavery. Twenty-seven million of them are engaged in forced labor, of which 82% of this figure is associated with supply chains.

Though many survivors of human slavery put on a brave face and try to go about their lives as best they can, it is debatable whether or not they can truly ever be made whole.

The conversation begins with Matt sharing his background and what drew him to the cause of modern slavery. He also stresses that despite the Mekong Club being an NGO, it works with the private sector, perhaps more so than with other NGOs or state bodies. As he notes, there is a greater impetus to take action to effect change in the private sector than in the public sector.

Working with the private sector is an approach that has served Matt and the Club well because, as he puts it: “The private sector has a sense of urgency, unlike the public sector. If a company does an audit on human trafficking and there is a problem, within fifteen minutes, they will call a meeting of all the relevant stakeholders and work to remediate it. The private sector does more than traditional NGOs because they are closer to the action,” he said. He added that NGOs tended to intellectualize matters, often reducing them to purely academic or legal concerns.

Reflecting on his four decades in the field, Matt also recounts what has changed about human trafficking and what has remained the same. As he points out, the evolution of human trafficking is interesting, going from forced manual labor to compelling enslaved persons to undertake more elaborate crimes such as scam farms and ‘pig butchering’ schemes.
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The discussion concludes with Matt sharing his views on how the financial sector can protect themselves from becoming unwitting participants in human trafficking and the sex trade. There is an intersection between money laundering, financial crime, and human trafficking, he says, and it is something the UN Counter-Trafficking program was created to combat.

The Regulatory Ramblings podcasts are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong—Reg/Tech Lab, HKU-SCF Fintech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in Fintech, with support from the HKU Faculty of Law.

Useful links in this episode:

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Trekking Through Compliance

Trekking Through Compliance: Episode 6 – Human Trafficking Lessons from Mudd’s Women

In this episode of Trekking Through Compliance, we consider the episode Mudd’s Women, which aired on October 13, 1966, with a Star Date of 1329.1.

Story

Harry Mudd attempts to evade the Enterprise with his small class J cargo ship and leads it into an asteroid field. The Enterprise extends its shields over Harvey’s ship, burning out three of its four lithium crystals. The crew of the Enterprise becomes fascinated with the three beautiful women Mudd has been transporting.

As a result of the destruction of three of its lithium crystals, the Enterprise is forced to divert to Rigel 12 to obtain new crystals. Mudd makes his bargain with the lithium miners on the planet. At Mudd’s prompting, the miners offer to provide Kirk with lithium only in exchange for Mudd’s freedom and the three women’s freedom. Kirk learns the women’s beauty secret: Mudd has given them the Venus drug. Kirk beams down to collect the lithium from Childress while providing Evie with red gelatin, which she believes to be the Venus drug. Evie believes herself again to be beautiful and unintentionally reveals her natural inner beauty. In the end, Kirk gets his lithium, Evie remains with Childress, and Mudd is taken into custody.

Commentary

This podcast focuses on Harcourt Fenton Mudd and his dubious exploits, particularly around transporting women under false pretenses. Tom delves into the broader themes of human trafficking, examining issues such as the illusion of consent, manipulation, and economic exploitation. He also emphasizes the importance of victim support, legal responsibilities, and the power of awareness and education in combating human trafficking within compliance programs. The episode provides a timely reflection on these issues while drawing parallels to modern compliance challenges.

Key Highlights

  • Plot Summary of ‘Mudds Women’
  • Human Trafficking Themes in ‘Mudds Women’
  • Compliance Lessons from ‘Mudds Women’

Resources

Excruciatingly Detailed Plot Summary by Eric W. Weisstein

MissionLogPodcast.com

Memory Alpha

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FCPA Compliance Report

FCPA Compliance Report – Fighting Forced Labor with Supplier Due Diligence

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. In this episode, Tom welcomes Ragini Bhalla, head of content and PR for Creditsafe, focusing on the North American region, and Steve Carpenter, Country Manager for Creditsafe in Canada. Their discussion centers around a new Canadian law designed to combat human trafficking forced labor, and child labor within supply chains. Throughout the conversation, they shed light on the practices of various multinational corporations, emphasizing the need for cohesive anti-slavery reporting and measures across different jurisdictions. It becomes evident that addressing these critical issues requires collaboration and comprehensive efforts from all parties involved.

A key to compliance with ethical sourcing and compliance with this new Canadian law is through a company’s Supply Chain. Companies must ensure their supply chains are free from forced labor and child labor, and Credit Safe provides services to help. The Canadian Forced Labor Law and the UK’s Modern Slavery Act are steps toward making companies accountable for their actions, but governments must also work with countries like India, Bangladesh, and China to create real change. Non-compliance can lead to fines, customer trust loss, and potential stock dips, and due diligence checks and audits are necessary for companies to protect the integrity of their supply chains. Ethical sourcing is a complex issue requiring collaboration between governments, companies, and experts.

 

Creditsafe is in a unique position to assist companies comply with laws making illegal human trafficking, forced labor, and child labor. In this podcast, you will learn how to investigate your suppliers in a way that enhances your business operations. Once again, this demonstrates that effective compliance leads to more effective business processes, leading to greater profitability.

 Key Highlights

·      Fighting Forced Labor

·      ESG Supply Chain Auditing

·      Canadian Compliance Law

·      Reputational Risk of Non-Compliance

·      Ethical Sourcing

Resources

Ragini Bhalla on LinkedIn

Steve Carpenter on LinkedIn

Creditsafe

Tom Fox

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Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

LinkedIn

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Compliance Week Conference Podcast

Gwen Hassan on Assessing a Growing Risk Area – Human Trafficking and Forced Labor

In this episode of the Compliance Week 2023 Speaker Preview Podcasts series, Gwen Hassan discusses some of her presentations at Compliance Week 2023,  “Assessing a Growing Risk Area – Human Trafficking and Forced Labor.”

Some of the issues she will discuss in her presentations are:

  • How increased enforcement of anti-forced labor and anti-human trafficking laws, the emergence of new due diligence and trade laws, and heightened inquiries from customers and other business partners are combining to make forced labor prevention compliance a priority for a broad range of companies;
  • Recent enforcement against the apparel and solar industries and identification lessons learned for other industries that are coming under increased scrutiny by media, NGOs, regulatory authorities, and other stakeholders; and
  • Recommendations for where and how to start developing a human trafficking prevention program for your organization.

I hope you can join me at Compliance Week 2023. This year’s event will be May 15-17 at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC. The line-up of this year’s event is simply first-rate, with some of the top ethics and compliance practitioners around.

Gain insights and make connections at the industry’s premier cross-industry national compliance event offering knowledge-packed, accredited sessions and take-home advice from the most influential leaders in the compliance community. Back for its 18th year, compliance, ethics, legal, and audit professionals will gather safely face-to-face to benchmark best practices and gain the latest tactics and strategies to enhance their compliance programs. And many others to:

  • Network with your peers, including C-suite executives, legal professionals, HR leaders, and ethics and compliance visionaries.
  • Hear from 75+ respected cross-industry practitioners who are CEOs, CCOs, regulators, federal officials, and practitioners to help inform and shape the strategic direction of your enterprise risk management program.
  • Hear directly from the two SEC Commissioners, gain insights into the agency’s enforcement areas, and walk away with guidance on remaining compliant within emerging areas such as ESG disclosure, third-party risk management, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, and more.
  • Bring actionable takeaways from your program from various session types, including ESG, Human Trafficking, Board obligations, and many others, for you to listen, learn and share.
  • Compliance Week aims to arm you with information, strategy, and tactics to transform your organization and career by connecting ethics to business performance through process augmentation and data visualization.

I hope you can join me at the event. For information on the event, click here. Listeners of this podcast will receive a discount of $200 by using code TF200 on the link here.

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Hidden Traffic Podcast

EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive Update

In this solo episode of Hidden Traffic Podcast, host Gwen Hassan dives into the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) adopted by the European Council, which replaces the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). The CSRD requires companies, both public and private, to report on a wide range of sustainability-related topics, including human rights, anti-corruption, modern slavery and human trafficking prevention, and environmental protection. Gwen will explain the impact of this directive on businesses and provide valuable insights into what companies can do to meet its requirements. 

The CSRD directive aims to increase disclosure requirements for companies and prevent greenwashing. It will also require subsidiary level reporting and auditable information about supply chain, due diligence and human trafficking prevention. The CSRD applies to a larger number of public and private companies and will increase cost. Companies should start preparing as soon as possible to meet the requirements.

 

The CSRD requires companies to report on a wide range of sustainability-related topics – including human rights, anti-corruption, modern slavery and human trafficking prevention, and environmental protection – and provide information about their strategy, targets, governance policies, incentives and risks. The European Commission will adopt standards for reporting under the CSRD by June of next year. The directive will become effective on January 1, 2026, with a 2028 opt-out date for small and micro entities. Large entities and their parents will have to comply immediately.

 

The recent development of the Forced Labor Protection Act in Africa highlights the issue of outsourcing services to low-cost countries and the potential liability companies can face for labor violations and human trafficking in their supply chain. A former content moderator in Kenya filed a lawsuit against both the outsourcing company he worked for and Meta, a social media giant, alleging that he was subjected to viewing graphic and violent material that caused him post-traumatic stress disorder. The court ruled that the case against Meta can move forward, highlighting the need for companies to take responsibility for practices in their supply chain, even if they were not aware of them. This could result in a strict liability standard for many types of companies.

 

Resources

Gwen Hassan on LinkedIn

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Hidden Traffic Podcast

Rock and Roll Against Human Trafficking with Noel Thomas

Noel Thomas is CEO of Zero Trafficking, a data company bringing innovative data, analysis, and training solutions to the frontlines of anti-trafficking. He joins host Gwen Hassan to discuss how Zero Trafficking is using technology in the fight against human trafficking. 

Prior to founding his company, Noel toured the world as the bass guitarist of a rock band. It was during one of these tours in 2007 that he first got exposed to the issue of human trafficking through a flyer aiming to raise awareness. It inspired him to learn more about human trafficking and join the efforts to eradicate it.

Rather than manually looking for human trafficking online, Noel and the task forces he worked with thought of a better way to bring technology into the space. They quickly realized that corporations like social media platforms, banks, and even real estate developers could also benefit from this data; they could use it to up their compliance and mitigate the risks involved with human trafficking. 

 

Resources

Noel Thomas on LinkedIn

Zero Trafficking

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Hidden Traffic Podcast

Using Technology for Human Rights with Vera Belazelkoska

 

How do you create a system where you are continuously and effectively listening to your key stakeholders in an inclusive manner? Vera Belazelkoska is Director of Programs at Ulula, a social enterprise startup that provides organizations with digital tools and expertise to monitor the human rights impacts in their global supply chains. She joins host Gwen Hassan to discuss how Ulula is helping companies amplify the voices of people who don’t always get to talk to the social auditors. 

 

 

Ulula designs technology solutions to help companies do better in many areas. They are dedicated to building, configuring, and successfully implementing different innovative tools to help organizations monitor human rights issues, labor rights impacts, and community rights in global supply chains. Supply chain transparency is part of it, but they also focus on the accountability aspects. 

 

Corporations are being held to increasingly high standards across different jurisdictions to ensure that they do everything in their power to identify human rights violations they may be complicit in along their supply chain, and then remediate them.

 

Resources

Vera Belazelkoska on LinkedIn 

Ulula

 

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Hidden Traffic Podcast

Ending Human Trafficking through Research and Information Networks with Rebekah Enoch

 

Rebekah Enoch is Program Director at Human Trafficking Search, an organization aiming to raise awareness and contribute to preventing and eliminating human trafficking worldwide. She joins host Gwen Hassan to share how Human Trafficking Search is fighting human trafficking through education.

 

 

Human Trafficking Search is an electronic clearinghouse of information about the many faces of human trafficking, including sex trafficking, labor trafficking, child labor, and labor exploitation. “We really try to encompass every level of that conversation so that if you are someone who works in the field or an aspect of the field, you can find materials for any research you’re doing to inform what you’re working on,” Rebekah explains. Even laymen who just want to be informed can access easily digestible information from their website.

 

They also conduct their own investigations, she adds. Recently, HTS published a report about how the green revolution in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be linked to cobalt mining. While this may not sound like a problem initially, cobalt mining in the DRC is driven by a host of issues around child labor and labor exploitation. 

 

Resources

Rebekah Enoch on the Web | LinkedIn | Twitter

Categories
Hidden Traffic Podcast

Developments in Human Trafficking and Forced Labor Prevention

 

In this solo episode of the Hidden Traffic Podcast, host Gwen Hassan discusses recent developments in human trafficking and forced labor prevention. She shares with listeners a snapshot of where Hidden Traffic is headed over the next few months as 2022 draws to a close.

 

 

There has been a flurry of activity around the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Gwen claims. It has been driving broader conversations among companies about their supply chains, serving as an impetus to examine where they source their products from and if they have been enabling entities that violate human rights. Even companies that are truly domestic have now started full-scale risk assessment processes for forced labor risk within their supply chain.

 

It really has stemmed from UFLPA work, because many of them are concerned they may have private label goods that are manufactured for them under a contract manufacturing arrangement overseas. They’ve become aware of the fact that they may be caught up in a forced labor situation, even if it’s not their own labor or their own manufacturing.

 

Resources

Gwen Hassan on LinkedIn

 

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Hidden Traffic Podcast

Supply Chains and Risk Assessments with Mollie Sitkowski


 
Mollie Sitkowski is Trade Compliance Counsel at Faegre Drinker, where she handles import and export control and compliance work on behalf of the firm’s clients. She has assisted numerous clients in developing and implementing import and export compliance programs and offers continued training to the business areas that touch on import and export compliance. She returns in this episode to discuss key points about the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
 

 
Customs has been advocating forced labor risk assessments since the consumptive demand loophole that allowed companies to import goods made by forced labor was taken out. However, aside from companies in very high-risk industries such as textiles, most companies weren’t conducting these risk assessments. Mollie advises listeners to start mapping out supply chains and identifying ones with the highest risk – you can’t assess your risk without knowing your supply chain. 
 
Every company should have a supplier code of conduct, Mollie adds. The best practice would be flowing down the requirements from your first-tier suppliers to their suppliers, because the manufacturers also need to be on board and held responsible.
 
Resources
Mollie Sitkowski on LinkedIn