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Mekong Club Launches Modern Slavery Baseline Assessment Tool with UK Consulate Support
HONG KONG, February 28, 2024 – The Mekong Club, a global leader in addressing modern slavery which engages the private sector, is pleased to announce the launch of its Modern Slavery Baseline Assessment Tool on March 28th, 2024. Developed with support from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in Hong Kong, this tool equips companies from all sectors and sizes with a strategic roadmap to enhance their anti-slavery efforts.
The assessment covers key aspects such as policies, governance, risk assessment, training, due diligence procedures, and reporting. Through a meticulous scoring system, organisations receive tailored recommendations, allowing for focused resource allocation and continuous improvement in their anti-slavery efforts.
Key Features:
- Anonymous anti-slavery score and comprehensive report: Discover your organisation’s anonymous anti-slavery score, providing valuable insights and recommendations through a detailed report.
- Benchmarking: Find out how your score compares confidentially against industry standards.
- Expert consultation: Engage in two confidential sessions with our experts to set up anti-slavery roadmap strategies.
- Data for ESG contribution: Leverage insights to support ‘S’ metric within Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) efforts related to modern slavery and human trafficking.
Impact and reach:
The tool is designed to assist companies across sectors, including supply chains, hospitality, finance, and small to medium enterprises. By reaching a broad audience, the Mekong Club aims to contribute significantly to the prevention of human trafficking and modern slavery through a business-to-business partnership.
Partnership with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
The British Consulate-General Hong Kong played a pivotal role in funding the tool and facilitating its distribution to stakeholders. Their commitment aligns with our mission to address modern slavery and the British Government’s commitment to legislating against all forms of modern slavery.
“We are proud to support The Mekong Club in the creation of their new Modern Slavery Baseline Assessment Tool- it’s an innovative new way to tackle abuses that continue to be more sophisticated and hidden in their nature. The UK government works with experts like The Mekong Club to help tackle all forms of human rights abuse worldwide, and we look forward to further collaborations in the future.” said The British Consulate-General Hong Kong.
Matthew Friedman, CEO of the Mekong Club, said: “The launch of the Modern Slavery Baseline Assessment Tool marks a significant step forward in our ongoing efforts to address modern slavery. By offering organisations an anonymous anti-slavery score and comprehensive report, we aim to foster awareness, understanding, and, most importantly, action. With the support of the FCDO in Hong Kong, we believe this tool will play a pivotal role in promoting responsible practices across various sectors, ultimately contributing to the global movement against human trafficking.”
Mekong Club Achievements and Awards:
- 800+ Companies Reached
- 180,000+ Professionals Trained
- 47 Countries Visited
- 552 Media Mentions
- 51 Association Members
- 39 Corporate Tools
Awards:
Stop Slavery Innovation Award, Asia Gold Award, USAID’s Evidence2Action Award.
Media Contacts:
For press enquiries, please contact Caterina Foti at [email protected] or [email protected]
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The Mekong Club Joins Forces with the Asia Garment Hub to Address Modern Slavery in the Textile Industry
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hong Kong, December 13, 2023 – The Mekong Club proudly announces a strategic partnership with the Asia Garment Hub, a significant step towards promoting ethical business practices and tackling critical challenges prevalent in the textile industry. This collaboration marks a dedicated effort to address modern slavery and forced labour by enhancing awareness, delivering strategic tools, and facilitating comprehensive training initiatives.
The alliance between The Mekong Club and the Asia Garment Hub signifies a joint commitment to addressing the deep-rooted issues within the textile sector. Both organisations aim to drive sustainable change and foster responsible practices throughout the industry’s supply chains by leveraging their collective expertise and resources.
“At The Mekong Club, we are thrilled to embark on this partnership with the Asia Garment Hub,” stated Nolan Clack, Marketing Director at The Mekong Club. “Our joint mission is to elevate awareness, provide crucial tools, and empower stakeholders with the knowledge needed to effectively prevent and address modern slavery and forced labour within the textile industry.”
The Asia Garment Hub, renowned for its dedication to promoting ethical standards and sustainable business approaches, aligns seamlessly with The Mekong Club’s vision of redefining how businesses collectively achieve a world without slavery. This collaboration will emphasize the importance of proactive measures and equip stakeholders with the necessary resources to uphold ethical practices across the textile supply chain.
To learn more about the Asia Garment Hub, visit their website.
About The Mekong Club:
The Mekong Club is a leading nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting ethical business practices and transparency in supply chains through public and private sector engagement. Through innovative solutions and collaborative partnerships, The Mekong Club empowers businesses to create a lasting positive impact on society.
About the Asia Garment Hub:
The Asia Garment Hub is the industry’s first digital platform dedicated to Decent Work and Sustainability. It brings together high-quality resources from leading organisations and respected voices, as well as handpicked industry news, authoritative data, events and community discussions with the aim of spurring individual and collective action on pressing industry challenges, from wages to workers’ rights, digitalisation to decarbonisation.
The Asia Garment Hub is a joint initiative of the GIZ’s regional project FABRIC and the ILO’s Decent Work in Garment Supply Chains Asia project.
For media inquiries and further information, please contact:
Caterina Foti
Project Manager
Constantia Chirnside [email protected]
David Williams [email protected]
Co-directors, the Asia Garment Hub
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The Mekong Club Launches the Supplier Portal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hong Kong, November 29th, 2023 – The Mekong Club has launched a new solution to enhance ethical business practices in global supply chains.
The Supplier Portal is an open-source repository that offers user-friendly tools, empowering factory managers to identify and address forced labour risks within their facilities and supply chains. It includes a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section and a confidential and secure space where brands and suppliers can ask questions and seek guidance anonymously.
It is a public open-access portal available in multiple languages, such as Bangla, Malay, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Hindi, Thai, and English, with additional languages slated in the coming months.
The portal was developed in consultation with industry leaders and introduces tools and resources for suppliers to implement buyers’ requirements in alignment with evolving global legislation. Social audits have long been relied upon as a tool for ensuring supplier compliance. Yet, they often lack the comprehensive scope to effectively address labour rights abuses throughout the value chain.
“The Mekong Club has been extensively working with brands and retailers to shape Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) and anti-slavery policies. The way forward was to create tools to enable suppliers to effectively take part in these initiatives. There is an urgent need for brands and retailers to build trust, enhance communication and provide support to their suppliers,” said Clémence Aron, Programme Director at the Mekong Club.
The Mekong Club invites other organizations that have created tools for suppliers or SMEs to contribute these resources to the portal.
In line with the constantly evolving global laws, three crucial tools were released in November 2023, namely the Forced Labor Indicators tool, the Transparency Legislation Guide for Suppliers, Self-assessment Questionnaire Template, and an Anonymous FAQ Forum. These tools can be utilized by businesses to detect and resolve forced labour risks in their own operations and supply chains.
Forced Labour Indicators: This tool provides a detailed description, an example, and potential sub-indicators for each category of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) forced labour indicators. Its purpose is to help companies identify and pinpoint forced labour risks in their operations and supply chains.
Transparency Legislation Guide for Suppliers: This document offers a concise overview of how anti-slavery and Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) legislation affects businesses that engage in global supply chains. It is intended to help businesses meet their responsibilities under such legislation.
Self-assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) Template: Designed to streamline the process, this template guides suppliers through a structured assessment process to identify forced labour risks. It is tailored to aid in pinpointing forced labour risks, while also gathering pertinent data crucial for social audits and other assessments in a more efficient manner.
Anonymous FAQ Forum: Developed to delve into complex subjects like child labour, Human Rights Due diligence (HRDD), and recruitment fees in our FAQ forum. Brands and suppliers can anonymously seek answers from peers or receive expert insights from the Mekong Club team.
Additional resources will be incorporated gradually.
Translation into additional languages is scheduled for the coming months.
For more information about the Supplier Portal and the Mekong Club’s mission to promote ethical business practices and transparency in supply chains, please visit our supplier portal or contact us at [email protected].
About The Mekong Club
The Mekong Club is a leading non-profit organization dedicated to promoting ethical business practices and transparency in supply chains through public and private sector engagement. Through innovative solutions and collaborative partnerships, the Mekong Club empowers businesses to create a lasting positive impact on society.
Media Contact
Caterina Foti
Project Manager
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The Horrifying Reality of the Human Trafficking Scam Trade
For Immediate Release
Alarming Exponential Increase of Trafficking through Fake Job Ads Targeting White Collar Professionals, College Students: The Horrifying Reality of the Human Trafficking Scam Trade, Fuelling Online Scams such as the “Pig Butchering Scam” that’s Gone Global.
21 July 2023, Hong Kong: The Mekong Club, a global nonprofit dedicated to addressing human trafficking and modern slavery in the Private Sector, is proud to announce its latest initiative to raise awareness and take action against the growing threat of human trafficking for the purpose of online scams, such as the widely reported ‘Pig Butchering Scam’.
The exponential proliferation of this dangerously manipulative form of human trafficking is posing a significant threat to tech savvy professionals and students, as well as vulnerable individuals globally. Criminal networks employ elaborate techniques to lure victims through fake job recruitment; these individuals are then trafficked into compounds across Southeast Asia, and forced under duress and threat to scam others from wealthy nations. The complex sophistication of this crime, a double-edged sword, involving trafficking and violence, alongside fraud, money laundering and crypto currency, makes it even more challenging for law enforcement and civil society to combat the criminal operations and help those affected.
For the first time, an international collaboration will bring together global expertise to investigate and gather intelligence to produce a landmark publication on all the details and the ins and outs of the human trafficking scam trade.
The following organizations will collaborate with the Mekong Club: Humanity Research Consultancy, a social enterprise in the UK providing local evidence-based insights to empower policymakers to end human trafficking, and The Knoble, a nonprofit business association addressing fraud for financial institutions in the U.S., and the Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative, a nonprofit in the U.S. utilizing technology to support financial institutions in fraud and human trafficking detection.
Key Points and Highlights:
- Recent media reports have put a spotlight on an alarming increase in human trafficking to fuel online scams, with thousands of victims trapped in a cycle of physical and sexual violence, restriction of movement, debt bondage and other indicators of human trafficking and modern slavery, with many victims being sold for thousands to companies operating in the compounds, often via encrypted apps
- The crime involves the use of sophisticated tactics by criminal networks to deceive and manipulate vulnerable individuals, forcing them into illegal activities against their will.
- The involvement of cryptocurrencies and money laundering further complicates the efforts of law enforcement to disrupt and dismantle these criminal networks.
- The criminal networks have developed intricate internet connections, making it challenging to identify where the compounds are located, allowing the traffickers to stay under the radar.
- Critical recommendations are needed for law enforcement, national governments, and anti-trafficking organisations to better help prevent this type of trafficking and detect and support victims.
- Key suggestions and more awareness are necessary to prevent others from becoming victims of sophisticated financial fraud, often using AI, linked to criminal activities.
Matthew Friedman, CEO of The Mekong Club says: “The issue of human trafficking into scam centers has resulted in an unprecedented horrific new wave of crime that is having a devastating impact on the trafficking victims and the scam victims. Unless immediate action is taken, this insidious new type of human trafficking will continue to proliferate. To prevent hundreds of others from being ensnared, we must all act now.”
Mina Chiang, Founder & Director of Humanity Research Consultancy, said: “Understanding the emerging industrial scale scam fuelled by human trafficking is only the beginning of the journey to understand this unscrupulous criminal industry and the extent it destabilises the region. Criminals are fast, adaptive, and resourceful – the counter-human trafficking world has to catch up fast.”
Larry Cameron, CISO of the Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative, said: “Special Economic Zones have been created to protect criminals, and we must all work together to dismantle these criminal networks. This is an immensely challenging task, but despite these difficulties, several strategies can be pursued. It will require strong international pressure, sanctions, Information sharing, engagement, public awareness, and more seizures of their assets and funds. We need to make sure they are accountable and expose them to these human rights abuses and bring the victims justice. The victims’ and communities’ safety and well-being should be prioritised to create meaningful change.”
Notes to editors:
Matt Friedman, CEO of The Mekong Club, is a global expert on modern slavery and human trafficking. As an award-winning keynote speaker, filmmaker and author, Matt regularly advises heads of governments and intelligence agencies. Matt is considered the leading catalyst of the anti-slavery movement in Asia’s business sector by captains of industry.
Founded in 2012, The Mekong Club works closely with the private sector to bring sustainable practices against modern slavery across the globe. Their business association members include small, medium, and multinational brands across multiple industries globally. The Mekong Club regularly convenes executives from these companies to discuss key trends, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration. They work confidentially with companies to understand where their anti-slavery strategies stand in relation to industry standards, sharing best practices and practical recommendations. Furthermore, The Mekong Club develops innovative tools based on the real-world insights from their members, and resources to further industry-wide responses to modern slavery trends and challenges.
The Mekong Club has been awarded three international awards: the Stop Slavery Innovation Award, Asia Gold Award, and USAID’s Evidence2Action Award. These were granted to The Mekong Club’s development of AppriseAudit, a groundbreaking app that helps identify potential victims of forced labour and improve workers’ interviews during social compliance audits. This harnessed technology aims to eliminate modern slavery through working with the brands’ global supply chains and supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Develop Goals (SDGs).
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VECTRA International and The Mekong Club Partner to Promote Responsible Business Practices to Address Modern Slavery
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VECTRA International and The Mekong Club Partner to Promote Responsible Business Practices to Address Modern Slavery
Brussels, Belgium, 20 April 2023 – VECTRA International, a leading provider of responsible business consultancy services to global organizations, is proud to announce a new partnership with The Mekong Club, a non-profit organization that focuses on working with the private sector to address modern slavery and related crimes, such as human trafficking and forced labour.
The Mekong Club’s business association members include brands and companies from a range of industries, from financial services to hospitality, retailing, and manufacturing, amongst others. They work to cultivate a community of like-minded professionals seeking to create sustainable approaches to ending modern slavery. They offer consultancy services and other support on all elements of a modern slavery strategy, from advising on modern slavery legislative requirements to supporting training or speaking at events.
The two organizations will collaborate to promote responsible business practices, increase awareness, provide training, and offer strategic business solutions to prevent and address modern slavery and forced labour across industries.
Matthew Friedman, Founder and CEO, said: “The Mekong Club is thrilled to be collaborating with an organization that shares a mutual vision of enabling the business world to be a force for good to bring positive change. Through this collaboration, we will unite our complementary experience to raise awareness and capacity within the private sector.”
Patrick Neyts, Managing Partner and Senior Advisor, said: “Our partnership with The Mekong Club reflects our shared commitment to promoting responsible business practices in supply chains and addressing modern slavery and human rights issues together.”
The partnership will leverage the expertise of both organizations to offer a comprehensive approach to responsible business practices, addressing modern slavery risks, including training for businesses, supply chain mapping, and human rights due diligence. The Mekong Club and VECTRA International will work together to engage companies to implement stronger mechanisms to address modern slavery in their organizations.
To learn more about VECTRA International, please visit www.vectra-intl.com.
Contact: Shalini Saini
Head of Strategic Partnerships and Marcom
VECTRA International
Contact: Caterina Foti
Project Manager
The Mekong Club
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The Mekong Club to raise international awareness of modern slavery through their annual Sweatshop Simulation Challenge as seen on CNN
The Mekong Club is a leading global nonprofit organization collaborating with the private sector to implement sustainable practices to eliminate modern slavery globally.
The Mekong Club will hold its annual Sweatshop Simulation Challenge – as seen on CNN – for private sector representatives and international schools in March 2023 in Hong Kong. Participants will experience “forced labour” firsthand to help raise awareness about modern slavery and how it exists globally and to raise funding to end this global scourge. The Mekong Club’s CEO, Matt Friedman, will host this harrowing simulation that has powerfully impacted countless corporates and students over the years.
The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) recent report has estimated that partly due to the Pandemic 10 million more people have fallen victim to modern slavery in the last five years on top of the 40 million from the previous report, an alarming increase in the number of global victims that will only continue to rise if societies fail to work together on this issue.
The Mekong Club’s end-of-year awareness-raising activities aim to bring international awareness of modern slavery – forced labour, debt bondage and human trafficking – generates more than US$150 billion a year for criminals.
During the Sweatshop Challenge, participants will spend consecutive hours performing a painfully repetitive action in the forced labour simulation – putting nuts on bolts and taking them off and on again and again. Participants will not be allowed to stop for food, water, or rest. If they do not perform quickly enough, they will be chastised and “punished”.
Before the simulation, participants will raise much-needed funds to help end forced labour by asking their supporters to donate money for each hour they are able to endure in the Sweatshop Challenge. The Mekong Club encourages each participant’s coworkers, friends, and family to attend and support them.
Once the simulation has finished, participants will join a feedback session to reflect on their emotions during the challenge and what it would feel like to work 365 days a year under duress for no pay. Everyone is encouraged share their Sweatshop Challenge experience on social media using the hashtag #SweatshopChallenge to raise vital awareness.
Testimonials from participants in past Sweatshop Challenges
“It was an opportunity for me to help my child understand how important every small thing in life is. It is very difficult to know and to feel that pain while sitting here unless we go through it,” said Prisha Malhotra’s family, who participated in a Sweatshop Challenge in 2021.
“I think we should take more care when we are buying items such as clothes and maybe invest in more sustainable and fair-trade items,” said Scarlet Casey, a previous participant in Sweatshop Challenge.
“To avoid more people being trafficked, we need to ensure that there is awareness-raising on the topic, prevention messages being offered, and systems and procedures developed to protect vulnerable people,” said Matt Friedman, CEO of The Mekong Club.
By hosting our Sweatshop Challenge, we hope to raise more global awareness of the issue and to collaborate with the private sector, schools and civil society groups to put an end to modern slavery.
Notes to editors:
About The Mekong Club
The Mekong Club is a nonprofit organization addressing modern slavery through a “business-to-business” approach. The Club, which bridges the public and private sectors, assists companies of all sizes globally in understanding the complexities of modern slavery and sharing best practices consistently. The Mekong Club collaborates with its members to develop innovative and strategic tools and projects to achieve a slave-free world.
Founded in 2012, The Mekong Club has scaled its business association with major global brands working together to address this hidden issue caused by criminals operating in company supply chains. The Club’s approach help brands understand the complexities of weeding out criminal activity by convening in industry-specific working groups, where members discuss modern slavery trends, challenges, share best-practice, and inform the Mekong Club’s work by requesting and contributing to anti-slavery tools and resources.
For press enquiries, please contact Caterina at [email protected]
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The Mekong Club’s annual fundraising activities to raise global awareness on modern slavery through NFTs and Sweatshop Challenge for its 10-year anniversary.
The Mekong Club, a Hong Kong based nonprofit, works with the private sector to bring about sustainable practices against modern slavery across the globe.
10 November 2022, Hong Kong: The Mekong Club, a nonprofit organisation that works with the private sector to address modern slavery and related crimes, such as human trafficking and forced labour, has partnered with NMKR to launch Hong Kong’s first nonprofit-ran NFT fundraiser as part of its 10-year anniversary celebration.
The Mekong Club’s NFT fundraiser aims to raise global awareness on the issue of modern slavery through digital art. It will also reflect the Club’s vision of a slave-free world whereby businesses collectively redefine how to approach social sustainability.
Volunteer designers from different cultural backgrounds have come together in an information session hosted by The Mekong Club’s CEO, Matt Friedman. Matt has provided a creative brief on how modern slavery is impacting the world. Designers are asked to articulate through NFTs how they think the world would look if there was no slavery. The NFTs will be showcased and available for auction on 29 November for #CryptoGivingTuesday, a global crypto fundraising campaign for nonprofits.
Alongside the NFT awareness-building and fundraising efforts, The Mekong Club is also preparing for its annual Sweatshop Challenge, where corporate representatives get a taste of what it is like to experience a sweatshop situation. Participants are challenged to spend four consecutive hours engaging in a repetitive action – putting nuts on bolts and taking them off. They will do this without food, water, or a break. If they do not perform fast enough, the organisers will scold them. This activity aims to help participants get a glimpse of what slavery would feel like 365 days a year. Through this event, The Mekong Club aims to raise broader awareness among attendees and encourage them to share their experiences online with the hashtag #SweatshopChallenge.
Matt Friedman, CEO of The Mekong Club, said: “To celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we want to recognize all the hard work of nonprofits and the United Nations working in the anti-trafficking field. Unfortunately, among all the nonprofits globally working on this issue and the United Nations combined, less than a quarter of one percent of the profits generated from criminal activity are being used to combat modern slavery. We hope that through this year’s fundraising activities, we can create a global awareness of the issue so we can collectively put an end to modern slavery.”
Notes to editors:
Matt Friedman, CEO of The Mekong Club, is a global expert on modern slavery and human trafficking. As an award-winning filmmaker, author and philanthropist, Matt regularly advises heads of governments and intelligence agencies. Matt is considered the leading catalyst of the anti-slavery movement in Asia’s business sector by captains of industry.
Founded in 2012, The Mekong Club works closely with the private sector to bring sustainable practices against modern slavery across the globe. The Mekong Club’s business association members include small, medium, and multinational brands across multiple industries globally. The Club regularly convenes these companies to discuss key trends, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration. The Mekong Club works confidentially with companies to understand where their anti-slavery strategies stand in relation to industry standards, sharing best practice and practical recommendations. Furthermore, The Mekong Club develops innovative tools based on the real-world insights from their members, and resources to further industry-wide responses to modern slavery trends and challenges.
The Mekong Club has been awarded three international awards, the Stop Slavery Innovation Award, Asia Gold Award, and USAID’s Evidence2Action Award. These awards were granted to The Mekong Club’s development of AppriseAudit, an app that helps identify potential victims of forced labour and improve workers’ interviews during social compliance audits. The technology harnesses to end modern slavery through working with brands’ global supply chains and supporting the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Develop Goals.
About NMKR
NMKR is the world’s leading brand to create a suite a tools that help companies, artists, developers, and self-starters develop blockchain products. NMKR’s strong focus on accessibility, has created a mix of easy-to-use development APIs and no-code building blocks, which can be combined in a modular way and bundled them into their core product NMKR Studio.
NMKR Studio operates on the Cardano blockchain, allowing the transaction fees to be as low as possible while having almost no environmental impact due to the Proof of Stake approach. The additional NMKR Studio service aims directly toward brands and companies to create a white label API solution by developing a branded NFT marketplace, trading platform, or launching a customized collection. NMKR Studio has currently minted more than 1 Million NFTs.
For press enquiries, please contact Caterina at [email protected].
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The Mekong Club, in partnership with Mosaic develop a strategic partnership
The Mekong Club, in partnership with Mosaic develop a strategic partnership to provide up to date resources to prepare suppliers and brands for the mandatory requirement of HRDD across the European Union, Canada and the United States.
9 September 2022 , Hong Kong, San Francisco, USA
The Mekong Club, a nonprofit organization, working with the private sector to bring about sustainable practices against modern slavery across the globe, has partnered with Mosaic. This first stakeholder-informed knowledge management platform streamlines remediate and improve processes for suppliers and buyers to improve labor conditions in global supply chains. The partnership is to support expanding additional digital support resources that provide access to regional laws, mapped international labor standards, and are supplemented with localized improvement guidance.
Mosaic Responsible Supplier Resource (Mosaic RSR) is a first of its kind, SaaS knowledge management platform built to accelerate and scale supplier improvement. We map and infuse supplier Codes of Conduct (COCs) with country-specific legal requirements and then support factory remediation with localized, professional improvement recommendations and help desk. Beyond helping suppliers and their workers, our content allows companies to meet new EU and North American due diligence laws and respond to US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) enforcement trends. See the Mosaic intro video.
The partnership is an available platform to better prepare the private sector for audits and create more effective corrective action plans that support long-term improvement goals and align with the brand code of conduct. Through this partnership, Mekong Club members have access to the Mosaic platform, which provides a cornerstone solution to make compliance easier. By providing their members a rich and ever-growing knowledge hub The Mekong Club ensures it’s members have access to best practices, pragmatic and informed tools and other resources needed in the fight against modern slavery.
With new Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) Laws requiring meaningful remediation practices, program credibility is at stake. Our new partnership with Mosaic will help to prepare suppliers and brands for the mandatory requirement of HRDD across the European Union, Canada and the United States.
Leveraging the Mekong Club’s resources and strong stakeholder community related to the challenge of modern slavery, Mosaic will enhance the depth and quality of their content in order to help brands and suppliers improve their practices.
With our new partnership, access to the Mosaic RSR platform will be made available as part of Mekong Club’s membership dues. For all inquiries please contact: [email protected]
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diginexAPPRISE in partnership with The Mekong Club to connect thousands of workers with international brands to improve supply chain transparency
diginexAPPRISE ensures that its international clients such as Decathlon and Li & Fung can hear directly from workers in their supply chain with the aim to improve working conditions and protect worker rights
29 August 2022, Hong Kong: Diginex, the impact tech company helping to solve the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges, has taken on diginexAPPRISE. The worker voice tool was initially developed by The Mekong Club in partnership with the United Nations University Institute in Macau (UNU-IIST) – an organisation working with the private sector to bring about sustainable practices against modern slavery.
diginexAPPRISE is a multilingual application that collects standardised, actionable data related to working conditions directly from workers in global supply chains. Through tailored question sets, companies can deploy surveys directly to workers in their supply chain on a variety of topics such as responsible recruitment, gender equality and pulse check living and working conditions. The innovative approach has been recognised as an effective toolkit for companies looking to enable and scale proactive worker-led due diligence. With at least 24.9 million people thought to be trapped in forced labour worldwide and millions more experiencing other exploitative working conditions, this application will help provide greater transparency across all sectors, to allow for targeted interventions.
diginexAPPRISE was developed in response to significant challenges faced during social audits, such as language barriers, a lack of privacy, and a lack of coverage of key social indicators – particularly to identify forced labour. diginexAPPRISE allows companies and frontline responders to interview workers anonymously and remotely through technology in their native language to ensure that organisations treat people fairly and respectfully.
The data collected increases transparency in organisations and reduces the chances of those raising concerns being identified, minimizing the risk of retaliation. The application – which is open source and integrated into diginex’s due diligence platform, diginexLUMEN – has already scaled to more than 100,000 workers across 15 countries. diginex’s upgrading of the tool and its subsequent integration into diginexLUMEN has unlocked opportunities to extend its reach exponentially. Since the takeover, diginexAPPRISE has been able to scale significantly and expand its capabilities by capitalising on diginex’s pioneering technology and international clients. It is already in use with some of the world’s largest companies and in some of the most complex global supply chains, such as Li & Fung.
Mark Blick, CEO, diginex says: “Companies are realising that people-led due diligence tools that enable individuals to share their experiences provide the best insight into actual working conditions on the ground. Our work with The Mekong Club is helping to overcome – and eliminate – unethical behaviour and ensure workers’ rights are respected around the world. Through diginexAPPRISE, organisations will be able to align their approaches with emerging laws, including the German Supply Chain Act and the upcoming EU Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence.”
Matt Friedman, CEO, The Mekong Club said: “Now and then a technical application comes along that really adds value to our ability to collect and analyse essential information. The Apprise App is an example of this. It is a highly effective tool to identify supply chain risk. The Mekong Club is thrilled to be partnering with diginex, a proven leader in technology solutions.”
Notes to editors:
About diginex
diginex is a disruptive impact tech business helping organisations to address the world’s most pressing sustainability issues, utilising the latest blockchain technology to lead change and increase transparency.
diginex’s frontier-pushing SaaS products are used by both companies and governments to tackle challenges including supply chain management, labour rights, due diligence, and corporate environmental responsibility. Its technology provides businesses who want to do better with the tools that both help them be more responsible, and realise the commercial benefits of ESG, including greater efficiency, reduced corporate risk, and increased ability to attract and secure investment. By using its technology to understand the impact of their operations, organisations can future-proof their business models and accelerate growth, while contributing to a better future.
Founded in 2017, with a global team of over 80 technology and impact experts, diginex is scaling rapidly and is a technology partner to major players around the world including The Coca-Cola Company, Reckitt, the US government and Fitch Ratings. Its products and platforms stand out as a new approach in the consulting-heavy world of sustainability, with a focus on using the latest innovations such as blockchain and AI to collect and validate data and, in the process, make ESG more affordable and accessible for companies of all sizes.
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A ‘moon goal’ for modern slavery
A ‘moon goal’ for modern slavery
Mekong Club-led initiative challenges private sector to eliminate forced labour from supply chains by 2030
The Mekong Club, Research and Communications Group (RCG) and Ashbury Communications today launched a new paper that challenges the private sector to eliminate forced labour from its supply chains by 2030 – and sets out a roadmap for realising this goal without a negative effect on companies’ profitability. The announcement coincides with CNN’s #MyFreedomDay, a global, student-driven event that raises awareness about modern slavery.
“We know that great things can be accomplished when people are drawn together by a common vision,” said Matt Friedman, CEO of the Mekong Club. “Like the U.S. space programme before it set the goal of putting a man on the moon, our response to modern slavery today is fragmented and often inefficient. A large number of highly committed people are working without a common vision and there is limited evidence of effective progress. We believe that establishing a highly ambitious – yet achievable – goal for ending modern slavery will bring together these disparate efforts and free millions of people from exploitative labour practices, while not forcing business to choose between what is right, what is sustainable and what is profitable.”
A way forward
As well as establishing the 2030 goal, the paper also sets out a roadmap for the private sector to use in eliminating an estimated 16 million modern slaves from its supplier networks. This approach is based on five core components, each of which has clearly defined targets.
- Build a clear and common understanding of modern slavery and why business must respond
- Equip counter-slavery actors with the information they need to act effectively, efficiently and decisively against modern slavery
- Establish multi-stakeholder monitoring, feedback and remedy systems to identify, address and prevent further labour violations
- Enhance the value of social audit processes through improvement and integration
- Support ethical migrant worker recruitment solutions
The Mekong Club, a Hong Kong-based non-profit that engages the private sector in the fight against modern slavery, will facilitate these processes. Based on feedback from the private sector, the Mekong Club also hopes to work with the private sector to collectively develop a set of Principles that support the 2030 goal.
Modern slavery is an ESG factor
The paper, COVID, ESG and Going to the Moon: How Business Can Unite to Eliminate Forced Labour, highlights how companies’ efforts to eliminate modern slavery from their supply chains will be seen as increasingly important by the growing number of institutions investing in accordance with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles. The paper argues that the way that a company addresses ESG issues – including the risk of forced labour among its suppliers – has already become a key factor in determining its access to capital, customers and talent.
“Every ESG investor should be taking forced labour into account,” said Adam Harper, Managing Director of Ashbury. “As ESG becomes the dominant investment theme of our times, shareholders will expect companies to rapidly improve disclosure and action on the full spectrum of environmental and social issues. For climate change, there’s the Paris Agreement, national net-zero targets and a number of frameworks to help corporates and investors achieve them. For the first time, we are proposing an equivalent goal for ending forced labour – and a practical methodology to help move towards that goal.”
Towards more standardised reporting
Sustainable investing has built up astonishing momentum over the last decade. According to research firm Opimas, the value of global assets applying ESG data to drive investment decisions has almost doubled over four years, and more than tripled over eight years, reaching US$40.5 trillion in 2020.iIn 2020, ESG funds attracted a record US$347bn of inflows, with 700 new funds being launched.ii
However, the Social component of ESG is widely considered to be the most challenging of the three components to measure. There are at present no standardised criteria or quantitative indicators for measuring social factors relating to modern slavery. The Mekong Club, RCG and Ashbury hope this initiative will enable companies to provide their investors and other stakeholders with more useful and consistent data about how they are addressing the risk of forced labour in their supply chains.
Pandemic effect
While sustainable investing has thrived during the pandemic, Covid-19 has also highlighted the vulnerability of the world’s poorest people as it caused the worst recession since the Great Depression. With global GDP expected to contract by 4.4% in 2020, the United Nations has warned that more than 200 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030.iii iv
This economic situation clearly puts more people at risk of modern slavery, yet efforts to help the estimated 40 million already trapped in forced labour have proved to be inadequate: it appears that only around 0.2% are receiving assistance. Phil Marshall, Director of Private Sector Engagement at the Research and Communications Group explained that: “The frustrating thing for me is that we actually know why many of these victims are not being identified. But it’s an opportunity also because we have some great examples of how we could help a lot more people, if we all committed to making this a priority.”
About the Mekong Club
The Mekong Club is one of the first not-for-profit organisations of its kind in Asia to use a ‘business-to business’ approach to fight modern slavery. Bridging the gap between the public and private sectors, the Mekong Club helps companies of all sizes to understand the complexities of modern slavery and to reduce their vulnerability within their supply chains/business environment. Together with business partners, the Mekong Club is spearheading innovative and strategic projects to achieve a slave-free world.
About Research and Communications Group (RCG)
The Research and Communications Group is a small, specialised consultancy company committed to improving social development outcomes. RCG’s private sector engagement programme brings together professionals with experience in counter-trafficking, manufacturing, auditing, and migration research to help organisations implement practical, timely solutions to labour issues within their supply chains, grounded in an in-depth understanding of the realities faced by migrant and non migrant workers.
About Ashbury Communications
Ashbury is an Asia-focused and content-led strategic communications consultancy that is driven by the future of finance. We exist to build and protect our clients’ reputations through strategic advice and outstanding content based on deep experience in the region and the financial sector. Ashbury was built on the conviction that original content creation and strategic advice should be fully integrated in corporate communications, disrupting traditional agency models that often separate two disciplines that should rightly inform and shape each other.
Our clients are global banks, insurers, asset managers, industry bodies and fintechs active in Asia Pacific. We have a distinctive expertise in two areas that will drive the future of finance: Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and technology.