In this episode, Tom Fox welcomes Matt Friedman, founder and CEO of The Mekong Club, to discuss his book “Awakening the Advocate,” which explains his career in the fight against human trafficking.
Matt tells his journey through survivor/NGO stories, traces his personal journey from a shy child in Connecticut to 35 years of anti-slavery work across 35+ countries, and shows that ordinary people can become advocates. He assesses progress as limited relative to the scale of the problem (50 million in modern slavery; 110,000 helped; 6,000 convictions; $236B in profits vs. $400M, now $250M, to fight it), arguing that awareness is the main gap. He outlines how companies, especially banks, can start internally via leadership briefings, policies, awareness, targeted training, red flags, procurement review, and baseline assessments, linking efforts to ESG, business value, and reputational/regulatory risk. Matt also discusses AI’s emerging role in detecting patterns across supply chains and transactions and emphasizes individual actions, pro bono support, and the importance of compliance work.
For more information on the use of AI in compliance programs, Tom Fox’s new book, Upping Your Game, is available. You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon.com.
To learn about the intersection of Sherlock Holmes and the modern compliance professional, check out Tom’s latest book, The Game is Afoot-What Sherlock Holmes Teaches About Risk, Ethics and Investigations on Amazon.com.
Layoffs, no matter which side of the desk you are on, are one of the most difficult realities of the workplace. For leaders, they demand empathy, clarity, and responsibility. For employees, they can bring shock, uncertainty, and the need to rebuild. In this episode, Lisa Fina and Ellen Hunt invited Gina Lakatos and Gwen Hassan to explore what it means to manage layoffs with integrity and how individuals can survive and even thrive in the aftermath.
Our conversation focused on the human experience of layoffs: the decisions, emotions, mistakes, and opportunities that shape what comes next.
🔍 What We Cover
Compassion and clarity matter on both sides of the desk
Why the corporate math of layoffs is not a judgment of value or performance
How leaders can communicate with clarity, empathy, and respect
Acknowledging the emotional impact of layoffs on those who remain
Practical strategies for thriving after job loss: mindset, skills, and next steps
Layoffs may close one chapter—but they don’t have to define your story. This episode offers insight, empathy, and actionable guidance for navigating one of work’s hardest realities with dignity and resilience.
Innovation comes in many areas, and compliance professionals must be ready for and embrace it. Join Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, as he visits with top innovative minds, thinkers, and creators in the award-winning Innovation in Compliance podcast. Today, we begin a 3-part podcast series sponsored by Diligent with Clint Palermo, Kristy Grant-Hart, and Stephanie Font. In part 1, we discuss understanding human trafficking and modern slavery: a business imperative with Clint Palermo, Senior Manager (Due Diligence) at Diligent
Tom and Clint take a deep dive into the pressing issues of human trafficking and modern slavery and their significance to the business community. Palermo highlights his professional journey in compliance, beginning in 2018 at Diligent, and discusses the regulatory landscape across various jurisdictions, including notable laws like Canada’s S-211, the EU’s CS3D Directive, and the US’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The conversation emphasizes the importance of knowing third parties (KY3P), managing reputational risks, and maintaining continuous due diligence to ensure ethical business practices and compliance.
Key highlights:
Significance of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery
Welcome to a new season of the award-winning Hill Country Authors Podcast, sponsored by Stoney Creek Publishing. In this podcast, Hill Country resident Tom Fox visits with authors who live in and write about the Texas Hill Country. In this episode, Tom visits with Johnnie Alicia Bernhard, a native Texan, prolific writer, and part-time hill country resident.
Johnnie delves into her deep Texas roots and how her family’s history as German immigrants inspires her novels, all set in Texas. She shares insights into her professional journey from journalism to teaching high school English and eventually becoming a traditionally published author. The conversation covers the importance of Texas history in her writing, the craft of storytelling, and Johnnie’s experiences teaching writing classes to aspiring authors. Her novels, including ‘A Good Girl’ and ‘Hannah and Ariela,’ explore themes of family, immigration, human trafficking, and the immigrant experience in America. Tune in for an engaging discussion on the art of writing and Texas’s unique stories.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
