The Consumer Goods Forum, a global platform of retailers and manufacturers in the consumer goods industry, has recently adopted a resolution to fight forced labour. AIM-PROGRESS has committed to working with CGF to support this.
CGF member companies have been long committed to promoting decent working conditions worldwide but recognise that eradication of forced labour remains a key challenge. Global supply chains are complex, and they often involve some of the poorest countries in the world with limited institutional capacity for regulation to protect workers’ rights. The prominence of the informal sector, new trends in mass migration and the covert nature of forced labour continue to generate human rights abuses and lend to the difficulty of battling them.
As a result of these factors, 21 million people still suffer from working circumstances falling under the ILO definition of forced labour, an unacceptable situation that the consumer goods industry firmly intends to fight in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The Co-Sponsors of the Sustainability Pillar of The Consumer Goods Forum Marc Bolland, Chief Executive of Marks and Spencer plc, and Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever, stated,“As part of our wider efforts to promote human rights and decent working conditions worldwide, we acknowledge the broad societal problem of modern slavery and we strive to eradicate forced labour from our value chains. In doing so, we will harness the power of collective action as an industry group to identify and address issues and geographies of shared concern, enhancing the efficiency of any individual company initiatives in this area”.
AIM-PROGRESS is fully supportive of the resolution and will help drive implementation through its Human Rights work stream.
