Global Supply Chain
NWCRI’s mission for the Global Supply Chain is to move corporations in a systemic and systematic way to improve wages and working conditions within all elements of the global supply chain.
Cotton: A Breakthrough Years in the Making
For over a decade, NWCRI collaborated with the Cotton Campaign to end forced labor in Uzbekistan. Each year the government would shut down schools and public offices for months at a time to enlist students, teachers, nurses, and civil servants to harvest cotton.
Investors were instrumental in moving over 331 brands and retailers to sign the Pledge not to use Uzbek cotton.
During the 2021 cotton harvest, the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights declared that Uzbek cotton is now free of systemic child and forced labor.
Ethical Recruitment of Migrant Workers
It is estimated that almost 21 million people are trapped in conditions of forced labor. Migrant workers are vulnerable to slavery and human trafficking due to unscrupulous labor brokers who charge exorbitant recruitment fees, impose unreasonable deductions from promised wages, confiscate travel documents and prevent them from leaving.
Industries where the risks of exploitation of workers are the greatest include agriculture, apparel, construction, electronics and manufacturing.
NWCRI and ICCR members challenge companies to take leadership on this issue of the labor recruitment industry and its accompany human rights risks in the global supply chain. To guide this work we have developed the Best Practice Guidance on Ethical Recruitment of Migrant Workers.
Best Practices include policy development, work with suppliers, auditing tools, industry leadership and collaboration.
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