Mexico: LOCAL Initiative Promotes Collaborative Impact Approach among Municipal Stakeholders
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.
India and Bangladesh: Evidence-Driven Ethical Recruitment to Combat Debt Bondage
Leveraging innovative digital tools, the project promotes worker-centric data that grassroots CSOs can use to drive evidence-based advocacy efforts. Local partner organizations in India and Bangladesh received specialized training in digital data collection, allowing them to systematically document recruitment costs that workers should not have to pay. The project’s impact was significant, with 95% of participants reporting increased confidence in using data to engage with key decision-makers and advocates on debt bondage issues.
Asia: Mapping Migrant Worker Finances and Uncovering Hidden Burdens
In the complex landscape of global labor rights, meaningful change requires looking deeper than surface-level compliance. Verité’s workplace assessments are grounded in a worker-centered approach, enabling us to uncover systemic labor challenges and expose their root causes.
Throughout Asia, Verité’s comprehensive Foreign Migrant Worker Assessments employ rigorous, triangulated methodologies that translate into tangible worker protections. By employing forensic, investigative techniques our team uncovers complex, financial exploitation associated with migrant workers’ recruitment experiences.
Brazil: Carnauba and the Invisible Workers Behind an Essential Ingredient
Most people have never heard of carnauba wax, yet this remarkable substance from palm trees in northeastern Brazil is a crucial ingredient in products we use every day—from gummy bears and lipstick to smartphones and pharmaceuticals. Behind this invisible ingredient, carnauba workers—oftentimes migrant laborers from across Brazil
Engaging Driver Unions through Cross-Border Collaboration in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire
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.
Dear Sustainability Director
Andrea Galvez, Verité’s First Mile Due Diligence Lead on why brands need to take supplier engagement seriously.
In today’s rapidly evolving global business landscape, due diligence is no longer just a buzzword it’s a critical component of sustainable and ethical business practices. As directors of Sustainability, CSR, or Supply Chain Management for multinational brands, you’re likely grappling with a significant shift: the transition from voluntary to mandatory due diligence.
What Does It Mean to Embed Human Rights in Business Management Systems?
Embedding human rights means integrating them into your company’s DNA, its culture, strategy, and daily operations. It’s about placing human rights on par with other core business priorities like efficiency, quality, cost, and environmental sustainability. This requires a fundamental shift in how businesses perceive their role and responsibilities in the global economy, moving beyond mere compliance to proactive engagement with human rights issues.
Webinar: Launch of Verité’s Farm Labor Due Diligence Toolkit – Demystifying Human Rights Due Diligence for Companies, Suppliers, and Traders Sourcing Agricultural Commodities
This webinar is for companies, suppliers, and traders seeking to understand and implement human rights due diligence in agricultural supply chains. Join Verité for the launch our new Farm Labor Due Diligence Toolkit, a groundbreaking, free resource to help companies tackle challenging human rights issues – including on farms and in the “first mile.”
Worker Participation as a Catalyst for Supply Chain Transformation
As companies look to uphold ethical labor practices in their supply chains, a major challenge arises – how to promote worker freedom of association (FoA) rights in places where union rights are legally restricted? Furthermore, the corporate accountability landscape is shifting toward government regulation of supply chain compliance via transparency and due diligence mandates and trade sanctions. Considering this, how must companies reassess the prevailing practices in their supply chains that create obstacles and suppression of rights, even in countries where union rights are less restrictive on pape
Shedding Light on the Financial Burdens of Migrant Workers through Worker-Led Data Collection
As new and emerging human rights due diligence (HRDD) legislation, such as the recently passed EU Corporate Social Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), gains traction, the demand for transparent and accurate information regarding labor recruitment costs has escalated. As global supply chains grapple with the pervasive issue of debt bondage, a deeply rooted manifestation of forced labor, the urgent need to shed light on the hidden financial burdens shouldered by migrant workers has become critical.
The Fostering Fee Accountability and Cost Tracking (FFACT) project, a collaborative effort between Verité and over 10 other civil society organizations (CSOs) in India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, is addressing the need for transparent, accurate calculations of recruitment costs through worker-led digital
