Conditions of workers in the apparel and footwear industry have been in the public eye for more than twenty years: from reports of child labor in the footwear sector in the 1990s to grave health and safety incidents in Bangladeshi factories in recent years. This attention has resulted in...
Category: Blog Article
ATEST Calls for the Immediate Release of Kah Walla
Melysa Sperber, Director of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), issued the following statement in response to the reported arrest of Kah Walla, President of the Cameroon People's Party (CPP). Ms. Walla was arrested in Cameroon today while holding a meeting on political...
The U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking released its Annual Report
The U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking released its Annual Report last Tuesday, available on the State Department website here. Created by the Justice of Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-22), the Council is comprised of 11 presidentially-appointed survivors...
Forced Labor Risks: Major Food and Beverage Brands’ Supply Changed Ranked by KnowTheChain
Americans don’t often think about the food they eat being tainted with modern slavery, but forced labor may be found in the food you eat and the drinks you consume. However, the more companies know about where their products come from and how they are made, the more likely it is they...
The Responsible Sourcing Tool: A New Resource for Supply Chain Integrity
ATEST member agency Verité, in parternship with the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and several NGOs, has launched a new online tool to combat human trafficking in supply chains. The Responsible Sourcing Tool, available here, helps...
The 2016 TIP Report Holds Burma, Uzbekistan Accountable for Human Trafficking
Today the U.S. State Department released its annual report of the state of human trafficking around the world. The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report ranks governments worldwide into one of three tiers based on their effort to combat and prevent human trafficking, forced labor, and...
KnowTheChain Releases First Benchmark Report
Ranks 20 Information and Communications Technology Firms on Supply Chain Forced Labor You can’t stop what you can’t see, and modern slavery is one of the world’s most horrendous – and most invisible – human rights issues to tackle. In a step toward further educating...
Moving in the Right Direction on Anti-Trafficking Appropriations
Good news on the Senate’s commitment funding the fight against human trafficking! While the appropriations process is far from over, ATEST is pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee has reported increased funding and strengthened report language on two appropriations bills...
New Legislation Would Bring Transparency to America’s Work Visa System and Help Fight Human Trafficking
ATEST joins Polaris, the Economic Policy Institute, and Global Workers Justice Alliance in expressing support for a newly introduced bill designed to shed light on the poorly understood temporary foreign worker visa system. The Visa Transparency Anti-Trafficking Act, a new bill...
Make the Next President a Great Emancipator!
This blog post originally appeared on the Free the Slaves Blog. We need your help to make modern slavery a presidential campaign issue. With tens of millions enslaved worldwide, it’s critical that the next U.S. president make fighting slavery a priority. Today, the anti-slavery...