As Valentine's Day draws near this week, we turn our attention to the problem of forced and child labor in the chocolate industry. For more than 15 years, the major chocolate makers have promised to eradicate forced labor in their industry. But after spending tens of millions of dollars on the effort, it seems [...]
Photo: Lisa Kristine/Human Thread Foundation Today is the Super Bowl and over the last few years, a narrative has developed that "the Super Bowl is the largest sex trafficking event in the world". While we always appreciate any opportunity for increased discussion around the topic of sex trafficking, the assertion that there [...]
IBM has announced two separate projects that aim to track supply chains for the metals industry using the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform. One is designed to track cobalt traveling from a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a Ford Motor Company plant, while the other seeks to monitor the shipping of metals from [...]
Getty Images Demand for electric vehicles is fueling a rise in child labor in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, experts said this week, urging companies to take action as the industry expands. Cobalt is a key component in batteries for electric cars, phones and laptops, and Congo provides more than [...]
The global fight against people smuggling and human trafficking will be more effective when governments and businesses combine their powers, continuing the momentum of the Government Business Forum at the Bali Process, says Minister of Immigration Iain Lees-Galloway. Minister Lees-Galloway highlighted the need for government and business to work together at the Seventh Bali Process on [...]
Nearly every stage in the smartphone life cycle involves something ethically questionable. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images via BigThink) The fact that smartphones exist at all is nothing short of a miracle. Regardless of the considerable technical accomplishments they represent, the logistics involved in building a smartphone is complicated and widely distributed. On [...]
A young boy is forced to carry stone in Nepal. Photo: Lisa Kristine/Human Thread Foundation The government passed a master plan that prohibits child labor in all work sectors on Sunday’s meeting of the Council of Ministers. As per the master plan, the use of children as domestic helpers, porters, farm workers, in [...]
This young girl at a potato farm is one of hundreds of typical child slaves. (Martin Jay /TRTWorld) Mohamed is only 11 years old and considers himself lucky. Unlike hundreds of Syrian refugee kids who are reduced to working on farms in the east of Lebanon in the Bekaa picking potatoes under the [...]
Bulgarian citizens were kept as slaves and forced to beg in France. Yesterday, French police detained 11 people in Toulouse. All of them are Bulgarian citizens citizens as well. The arrested organized a human trafficking network from Bulgaria for the purpose of begging in France. All detainees are members of five Roma families. They forced [...]
Photo/Polaris Project Polaris released a report analyzing data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline that spotlights how human traffickers are weaponizing structural flaws within the temporary work visa system. A total of 797 individual victims of human trafficking holding guest worker visas were identified through the Hotline from 2015 to 2017. In fact, nearly half [...]
