Transparentem Founder Ben Skinner’s NYT Op-ed on Apparel Supply Chains 10 Years After Rana Plaza
In this New York Times op-ed, Transparentem founder and president Ben Skinner exposes the abuses still rife in apparel supply chains ten years after the Rana Plaza disaster. One big reason: brands’ overreliance on the multibillion-dollar social auditing industry, which often fails to detect problems when factory managers deceive auditors.
Watch Transparentem’s Virtual Side Session from the 9th OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector
On February 14, Transparentem hosted a virtual side event on migrant worker rights, as part of the 9th OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector. At the event, Transparentem discussed findings and outcomes from three of our investigations in Malaysia and recommendations for further improvements to protect workers’ rights–in Malaysia and […]
Transparentem Virtual Side Session: Mitigating Forced Labor Risk among Migrant Workers in Apparel Production
The 9th OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector will take place on 16 – 17 February 2023 both virtually and in person at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris. The OECD Garment Forum is accompanied by a vibrant agenda of side sessions organized by partner. Transparentem is pleased to present […]
‘Effectively and Systematically Gamed’: Why Audits Need an Overhaul
As an inferno ravaged a five-story footwear factory in southern Thailand last week, leaving massive cracks in the blackened walls that had firefighters fearing the building’s collapse, human-rights experts are debating the limits of social audits, particularly in the context of voluntary due diligence in global supply chains.
Human Rights Watch Report on the Shortcomings of Social Audits
Human Rights Watch’s new report on the shortfalls of social audits was released this week: ‘Obsessed with Audit Tools, Missing the Goal’: Why Social Audits Can’t Fix Labor Rights Abuses in Global Supply Chains. It provides recommendations for policymakers and regulators to better hold companies, as well as auditors and certifiers, accountable for human rights […]
Open Letter to CBP on Trade Data Transparency
Transparentem joined a group of 38 civil society organizations and advocates in calling for Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection Chris Magnus and the US Government to reject a proposal to hide import data from the public. We strongly oppose corporate efforts to eviscerate supply chain transparency. The trajectory should be for more transparency, […]
Ben Skinner Speaks at the 2022 Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards have become a critical tool for investors, employees, and customers to hold companies accountable for sustainability and social responsibility. They indicate the strength of a company’s management and probability of long-term financial success, and companies have an incentive to bolster their performance on these metrics. However, there is often […]
Uncovering Audit Deception: Countering Hidden Social Compliance Violations
“Sophie Broach, an investigations analyst at the global workers’ rights advocate Transparentem, writes about the nonprofit organization’s investigations into forced labor, child labor and other human rights abuses in economies in Asia, including India, Malaysia and Myanmar, which revealed the seriousness and prevalence of audit deception.”
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.”
