BHR attends discussion on the role of investors in responsible recruitment to asses Modern Slavery

BHR attended on January 2020 a discussion on the role of investors in and the importance of responsible recruitment in assessing Modern Slavery. The discussion was organised by the Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility and the Investor Alliance for Human Rights.

Unfair recruitment practices are a key driver of Modern Slavery, as BHR has witnessed in its recent work in the Spanish agriculture sector. As part of BHR’s work to combat Modern Slavery in global supply chains, BHR engages with relevant stakeholders across the world, from unions, workers, NGOs, to companies, authorities and investors, to collaborate and find ways to land  corporate policies and legal standards and to find solutions that effectively allow to tackle Modern Slavery. BHR is confident that engagement is fundamental to drive change, and that the investor community has a key role to play in ending Modern Slavery and advancing human rights in general.

The session looked at critical issues, such as

· how flawed recruitment practices, and particularly the payment of recruitment fees by migrant workers to secure employment abroad, can be core components of debt-bondage, forced labour, and trafficking;

· how responsible recruitment is increasingly featured in government reporting requirements and public procurement contracts;

· how improving and professionalizing recruitment practices will deliver tangible benefits to workers, companies, and economic development; and

· how the use of investor leverage, in line with the UNGPs, toward responsible recruitment of workers can shift the needle towards reducing exploitation in supply chains.