Labor Department Unveils Toolkit to Fight Child and Forced Labor Globally
With a free and easy-to-use toolkit, accessible on the DOL website, companies can work to prevent child and forced labor in their international suppliers.
Working to enforce and enhance child labor law compliance, the Department of Labor has released a guide to aid businesses in monitoring and avoiding child and forced labor in suppliers abroad.
Reducing Child Labor and Forced Labor: A Toolkit for Responsible Businesses is a free and user-friendly source that will encourage companies to have social compliance integrated in international suppliers. This social compliance entails: "engaging stakeholders and partners, assessing risks and impacts, developing a code of conduct, communicating and training across the supply chain, monitoring compliance, remediating violations, independent review and reporting performance," according to the DOL.
"Encouraging businesses to reduce child and forced labor in their supply chains helps advance fundamental human rights that are at the core of worker dignity, whether here in the U.S. or abroad," Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said in a video message announcing the toolkit.
This resource was introduced this week at an event gathering U.S. businesses interested in preventing labor abuses both here and abroad.
The toolkit can be accessed on the Department of Labor website.