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Fishing industry in Samut Sakhon, Thailand. Thailand is a top 5 global seafood producer, with exports reaping over $7 billion. But the profitable industry supplying consumers around the world with cheap seafood comes at a high cost to both the environment and to workers. The overwhelming majority of workers in Thailand’s fishing and seafood processing industries are migrants from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Labour brokers recruit from vulnerable communities, promising favourable employment in the construction, manufacturing, or agriculture industries. Migrants often incur debt from their recruitment, fees and costs associated with transportation and securing employment in Thailand. These debts are paid off through deductions from workers’ earnings with employers and brokers frequently using debt manipulation to inflate the amounts and force people into bonded labour. This and the other images in this collection are showing the context in which the Freedom Fund Thailand hotspot operates. They show the location as well as the boats on which migrant workers work. They also show facilities for processing seafood and the markets in which seafood is traded. We do not have names or stories of any of the individuals shown in this collection because that was not the purpose of this commission. Photo: Jittrapon Kaicome / The Freedom Fund
Work

Corporate accountability

The Freedom Fund’s Corporate Accountability initiative invests in cutting-edge accountability-based programs designed to shift corporate behaviour as a driver of forced labour across all sectors of the global economy.

Slavery in supply chains

 

Globally, the ILO estimates that there are approximately 27.6 million people in a situation of forced labour in 2021. Out of this, 17.3 million are exploited in the private sector, working in mines, factories and fields to produce raw materials and manufacture products destined for consumer markets. Companies should play a central role in eradicating forced labour from their value chains. However, despite companies issuing zero tolerance statements pledging to end exploitative conditions in their supply chains, workers across the globe continue to face systemic violations of their fundamental rights.

To deliver the systemic change required to eradicate forced labour from supply chains, we need to end the culture of impunity that allows companies to treat exploitation as a by-product of doing business.

Our programs

Strategic litigation

Strategic litigation has a unique power to compel business action to tackle modern slavery in global supply chains.

Ecosystem building

Ecosystem building is designed to amplify the capacities of Global South-based NGOs, lawyers, and activists.

Forced labour import controls

When effectively enforced, robust trade mechanisms can be used to combat forced labour in global supply chains.

Strategic litigation on corporate behavior

Strategic litigation is recognised as a powerful tool to hold companies and governments accountable for their human rights and environmental violations. The Freedom Fund commissioned research to assess the multifaceted effects of filing human rights cases against companies. The report focuses on the impact on corporate conduct as well as the broader international ecosystem. The report sheds light on the complexity of establishing clear, causal links between legal proceedings and companies’ actions, and reveals important considerations for initiators of human rights litigation, corporations, governments, and funders.

 

Download now Read the summary

Program objectives

Our goal is to incentivise broader systems change by increasing the pressure on businesses to address and remedy forced labour in their supply chains. This work is focused on the following three interrelated themes.

1

Accountability

Incentivise laggard companies to identify, address and remedy forced labour across all tiers of the supply chain through strategic legal action and public campaigns.

2

Remedy

Support the enforcement of liability regimes to end corporate impunity, including mandatory human rights due diligence legislation, that enable workers in global supply chains to claim their rights and access remedy.

3

Ecosystem building

Build a stronger and more connected global corporate accountability movement to challenge exploitative industries, centred on the meaningful leadership of rightsholders in accountability strategies.

 

Our team

Marta Bylica

Program Manager, Corporate Accountability

Claire Falconer

Head of Global Initiatives and Movement Building

Kehinde Ojo

Program Officer

Art Prapha

Senior Program Manager, Corporate Accountability

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