On June 27, the US Department of State released its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The TIP Report provides rankings and narrative assessments of the efforts of countries across the globe to combat and prevent human trafficking, forced labor, and other forms of modern slavery. Countries must improve their efforts to fight human trafficking to avoid the lowest ranking of Tier 3 and accompanying sanctions.
Verité is proud to unveil the updated Forced Labor Commodity Atlas. This new Commodity Atlas features the following nine commodities: coffee, cocoa, cotton, fish, gold, palm oil, sugar, tea, and tobacco. As our team continues to update our commodity reports with the most up-to-date research and resources in the coming year, we will add new commodity pages for all 43 commodities from the report: Strengthening Protections Against Trafficking in Persons in Federal and Corporate Supply Chains: Research on Risk in 43 Commodities Worldwide, made possible through support provided by the U.S. Department of State.
The U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has contracted Verité to expand and enhance the Responsible Sourcing Tool over the next five years. The Responsible Sourcing Tool is a free web platform created to help visualize and understand the risks of human trafficking in supply chains. The website contains a model compliance plan with downloadable templates and other tools based on Verité’s deep experience helping leading companies combat trafficking in their global supply chains. Verité launched the tool in 2016 with a series of meetings in the Washington, DC area opened by Ambassador Susan Coppedge, who directs the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.