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Building on the 2016 joint declaration between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire to combat human trafficking and child labor, Verité’s Forced Labor Indicators Project (FLIP) is strengthening collaboration between these two West African nations. Since 2018 in Ghana, and 2021 in Côte d'Ivoire, Verité has fostered coalition-building through Technical Working Groups (TWGs), uniting diverse stakeholders to raise awareness of forced labor and human trafficking, influence policies, and drive national-level change through collaborative expertise.

Based on the success of the FLIP Ghana model, the project is expanding activities into Côte d’Ivoire where project staff will similarly work to build stakeholder capacity to use the ILO indicators to understand and address forced labor risk.

Nine billion dollars (1)–a conservative estimate on how much the supply chain traceability sector will be worth within 10 years, or even sooner. It’s a big business. And it’s growing fast because companies know that understanding where their products come from and being able to offer assurances to regulators and consumers is critical to being able to run profitable and resilient businesses.

The political and humanitarian crises in Ukraine are reshaping the landscape for supply chain accountability throughout the broader region. More than 4 million refugees have fled Ukraine into neighboring countries, according to the UN. Prior to the Ukraine crisis, the numbers of internally displaced people and refugees globally were already at record highs, with more than 26 million Syrians, Central Americans, Venezuelans, South Sudanese, Rohingya, and others living as refugees abroad, and more than 84 million people around the world forcibly displaced in the first half of 2021.

Verité is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new initiative to support the enhanced tracing of goods made with child and forced labor. The STREAMS project (Supply Chain Tracing and Engagement Methodologies) will be implemented by Verité in collaboration with organizations that include Phylagen, RCS Global, the Responsible Sourcing Network and Sourcemap.

Companies face mounting pressures from consumers, regulators, and their own ethical and sustainability commitments when it comes to upholding workers' rights. Through two pioneering field pilots in the Indian cotton supply chain, Verité’s U.S. Department of Labor-funded Supply Chain Tracing and Engagement Methodologies (STREAMS) project is testing innovative approaches that combine supply chain traceability with robust labor rights due diligence. These pilots represent efforts to develop an evidence-base and resources that will help companies strengthen human rights due diligence efforts proactively, rather than reactively. 

The most significant contributor to the ongoing presence of debt bondage or forced labor in global supply chains is the burden of recruitment fees and expenses on migrant workers. Many employers and recruiters in high risk global supply chains build business models on charging unskilled and low-skilled workers fees for employment. Specifically, employers pay no or insufficient professional service fees to the recruitment agents they engage to find them workers. Rather, they knowingly allow agents to recoup revenue and the significant legitimate expenses associated with international labor migration—such as government approvals and travel costs—from the workers themselves.

This year, Verité launched the four-year Liderazgo, Organización y Colaboración para la Acción Colectiva en Temas Laborales (LOCAL) program, an initiative designed to foster locally-led collaborative strategies to address child and forced labor risks in Mexico’s agricultural sector.