Forced labour is a complex issue, perpetuated by unethical recruitment at multiple points in the recruitment supply chain. Forced labour will remain a pervasive global challenge without dedicated, collaborative and multi-faceted approaches which consider fundamental economic principles that drive supply and demand in these situations.
Based on our experience over the last several years, we have identified the inherent limitations to our ability to solve for ethical recruitment alone. We recognise that in order to successfully embed ethical recruitment practices, a holistic, end-to-end approach is necessary. In F25, in our role as a co-chair of the Consumer Goods Forum’s (CGF) Human Rights Coalition (HRC), we initiated a new concept – the ‘Ethical Recruitment Marketplace’ (Marketplace) – to seek to bring scale by bringing together multiple partners through multiple capabilities and project streams as they touch upon the migrant worker recruitment journey.
Migrant worker recruitment risks often originate beyond the direct control of retailers, manufacturers and suppliers. In particular, remediation and fee repayment efforts alone cannot solve the systemic problems that drive exploitative practices as they do not consider nor respond to the grassroots drivers and risks, whilst current initiatives may lack long-term sustainability due to cost barriers and lack of market incentives.
The ambition of the Marketplace is to move beyond the ‘first mile’, seeking to connect the end-to-end (‘100 mile’) recruitment journey, applying supply and demand principles to make ethical recruitment sustainably viable as part of a virtuous circle of levers. The foundational pillars of action will include: mutual recognition; ethical certification pathways; training and capacity building; and research, policy development and advocacy.
In line with our Group value of listening and learning, when developing the Marketplace project the Human Rights team spent time in Bangkok consulting multiple stakeholder groups including suppliers, civil society, recruitment agencies, United Nations agencies and human rights defenders. We intend to embed continual stakeholder listening sessions as we build out the Marketplace approach.
