Greg Dalgetty
Companies with exposure to modern slavery in their supply chains face enormous reputational risks — and many companies may be at greater risk than they realize.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency based in Switzerland, 25 million people were living in modern slavery — which includes slavery, forced labour, debt-bondage labour, child labour and human-trafficked labour — in 2016. The ILO estimates that forced labour generates more than US$150 billion a year in illegal profits.
There are numerous cases of high-profile companies facing a backlash for their connections to modern slavery — Nike Inc., for example, came under fire in the 1990s for its use of sweatshops in Vietnam. Today, companies with supply-chain exposure to the Xinjiang region of China, where there have been widespread reports of human rights atrocities such as forced labour, torture and forced sterilization committed against the Muslim Uyghur people, are under the microscope.