IRIS is a global initiative that is designed to promote ethical international recruitment. It works by defining and setting a benchmark for ethical recruitment (the IRIS Standard), and through establishing a voluntary certification scheme for ethical labour recruiters, and a compliance and monitoring mechanism. It is a due diligence tool for businesses, governments and workers developed by IOM. It also aims at identifying and supporting ethical labour recruiters, promoting the employer pays business model, increasing transparency in recruitment process and labour supply chains.
It is a multi-stakeholder initiative that involves the recruitment industry, employers, multinational companies, government regulators, international organization, civil society organizations and trade unions. Activities and outputs include: