Urmila Bhoola, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, YES.
Recent increases in global trade have created new opportunities for transnational corporations (TNCs) to avoid accountability for human rights violations. This lack of accountability stems from the offshoring of production to the lowest tiers of global supply chains (GSCs), which are usually based in developing countries or informal economies. The profitability of these enterprises is largely dependent on the ease with which they can avoid extraterritorial liability for violations of criminal and labour laws regulating forced labour and contemporary slavery. As part of a deliberate business strategy, many TNCs make use of home-based or small workshops where products are made in conditions of debt bondage, forced labour, the worst forms of child labour, or other forms of contemporary slavery. In these circumstances, opportunity, corruption, and corporate greed meet a ready pool of vulnerable workers – migrants, refugees, indigenous people, people with disabilities, children, and women – seeking the right to decent work and a living wage, but who end up being subjected to various forms of exploitation.
Maximising profit continues to clash with the rights of workers under international labour human rights law.
