Tech-Driven Tools To Uncover Labor Exploitation
“The report Hidden Harm: Audit Deception in Apparel Supply Chains and the Urgent Case for Reform, by the nonprofit organization Transparentem, documents many cases of deception during social audits in India, Malaysia, and Myanmar.”
Sweatshop Conditions Hide Behind Low-Quality Monitoring, Report Says
“In interviews at almost 20 factories and spinning mills in India, Malaysia and Myanmar, Transparentem investigators learned that employers routinely hid underage workers during audits, coached them to lie about their ages, or gave them modified identity documents to make them look older.”
Supply chain audit deception ‘common’ – report
Audit deception is common in global apparel supply chains according to a new report from the Transparentem nonprofit which calls for urgent reform. The report, entitled Hidden Harm, revisits previous investigations by the organisation which seeks to uncover and eradicate labour and environmental abuses in supply chains.
Migrant Workers in Malaysia’s Garment Sector Face Severe Exploitation
On Sept. 23, the Malaysian immigration department arrested a Bangladeshi garment factory owner, along with 45 illegal foreign workers, on suspicion of using fake temporary work permits obtained by hacking government systems. The workers, aged between 17 and 67, consisted of Bangladesh, Indonesian and Myanmar nationals, according to immigration director-general Khairul Dzaimee Daud.
2021 Apparel and Footwear Benchmark Report
Where labor rights abuses are identified at a subcontractor, it is important that remedy is provided to impacted workers, as ensuring the subcontractor is authorized is not the responsibility of workers. What should be the norm is only practiced sporadically: for example, the US sportswear company Brooks was highlighted by the investigative organization Transparentem for […]
A global call for full supply chain transparency in the clothing sector
This week, the world remembers the Rana Plaza tragedy. On 24 April 2013 more than a thousand workers lost their… life in what was, in essence, a preventable accident. The accident shook the world and put a spotlight on the unsafe conditions faced by workers in global garment supply chains. The fashion industry responded by […]
Mind the Gap: Migrant Workers Need Respect for Rights, Not Commitments on Paper
In spring 2018, Transparentem, an NGO focused on investigating labor rights abuses, approached apparel companies with forced labor findings at… Malaysian factories. Such findings are not new; the organization also noted that similar findings and mistreatment of migrant workers had already been identified in the Malaysian apparel and footwear sector ten years earlier. In October […]
Fashion, Xinjiang and the Perils of Supply Chain Transparency
Brandie Sasser, the vice-president of strategic engagement at Transparentem, a US non-profit that investigates environmental and human rights violations in… fashion supply chains, says this is already happening. While she has seen a slew of brands move away from Xinjiang cotton since the Trump ban, “companies have been much more nervous about what they put […]
Civil society organisations call on policymakers to define meaningful supply chain reporting requirements
Corporate sustainability transparency is a complex issue, which requires a careful selection of meaningful reporting requirements. Due to the climate… emergency and the advances in science and political agreements, there is greater clarity on which climate metrics and targets, as well as risk management-related information should be disclosed. However, there is less agreement on how […]
Du sang et des larmes sur les gants malaisiens
En 2019, après des mois d’enquête et de pressions, l’ONG américaine Transparentem a obtenu 1,6 million d’euros de réparations pour… 2500 immigrés employés dans l’habillement malaisien qui avaient payé pour être recrutés.
