The Important Role for Socially Responsible Businesses in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and Child Labor in Supply Chains

The general view of human trafficking is that it is something only occurring “over there,” in places such as Africa and India. However, this perception is wrong. Trafficking is a problem not just “over there,” but right here, right now. Indeed, trafficking and child labor abuses are part of our lives right here, right now. 
For example, slavery may taint the computer, smartphone, or tablet that you are using right now. A recent NGO study by Verité shows that one in three Malaysian electronics workers toil at forced labor. Slavery may have tainted the shrimp that you enjoyed last week. A recent investigation by The Guardian cited evidence that threats of extreme violence may have forced slaves to toil without pay for years harvesting shrimp in Thailand for sale abroad. The bad news is that these and other similar situations exist. The good news is that as businesspeople, there is something that we can do about it. As an example, The Guardian reports on efforts by businesses to form a task force to address the shrimp issue. 
You might be wondering, is this really an article in Business Law Today? Did I click the wrong link? You’ve got the right link. This article addresses two significant initiatives of the Business Law Section: its Corporate Social Responsibility Law Task Force and its Working Group on Model Business and Supplier Policies on Labor Trafficking and Child Labor. These supply chain and corporate social responsibility initiatives work together. While basic social decency demands elimination of labor trafficking from supply chains, corporate social responsibility supplies the business case for doing so.
The Supply Chain Issue
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 20.9 million individuals worldwide are victims of human trafficking. Of that number, 14.2 million are victims of forced labor or labor trafficking, and 4.5 million in sex trafficking or forced prostitution. As illustrated above, many of these slaves support the supply chains of products that we all use. As further confirmation, one only need look at the December 2014 version of the U.S. Department of Labor List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor to identify 136 goods in 74 countries produced in this manner (child labor is estimated by the ILO at 168 million). 
Human trafficking and child labor are against the law everywhere. Yet the reality is that in the countries “over there” where trafficking is most prevalent, the rule of law isn’t what it is in this country. The problem is that slaves produce goods that enter the supply chains of goods made here, used here, worn here, and eaten here. True, the Supreme Court took the teeth out of the Alien Tort Claims Act with its Kiobel ruling. Yet Congress still knows how to write laws (like Dodd-Frank’s conflict-minerals provision) having extraterritorial reach. As I counseled students in my LL.M. course on Corporate Professional Responsibility, basing risk management on nonenforcement of existing laws is unduly risky business. 
Responsible businesses already know about the supply chain problem and are trying to do something about it. They include a group that belongs to the Global Business Coalition Against Trafficking (gBCAT). Members include Carlson, Cison, Coca Cola, Delta Airlines, Hilton Worldwide, LexisNexis, Ford Motor Company, Manpower, NXP, and Travelport. The coalition has several worthwhile initiatives that dovetail nicely with the ABA Model Principles (Model Principles) and Polices (Model Policies) discussed below. 
Trafficking’s and child labor’s tainting of supply chains starts here in the United States and in other mature economies with consumer demand for cheap goods and services. Demand drives corporations to exact lower prices from supply bases. Price pressure, exacerbated by globalization, outsourcing, and use of labor brokers lead to exploitation of workers. Foreign workers are easily exploited because so many are extremely poor. Among the laborers my wife and I encountered in India, 20 percent live on one dollar a day, 50 percent are malnourished, 67 percent can’t read, and 33 percent don’t have access to safe drinking water. Consider that the present value of a single slave working in early nineteenth century America would be $40,000, while today, a slave sells in the sex or labor-trafficking market for just $90. Noted slavery expert Kevin Bales understandably titles his book citing these statistics Disposable People. 
Certainly, supply chain exploitation and other forms of trafficking like forced prostitution, which goes on bot