Ethical procurement awareness and guidance
Overview: Addressing human trafficking, forced labour, and child labour in federal procurement

This guidance forms part of Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC)’s strategy to address human trafficking, forced labour, and child labour by building awareness with its vendors and suppliers.

PSPC collaborated with Rights Lab to develop this guidance. We previously worked with the institution to conduct a risk assessment of PSPC supply chains.

Rights Lab is an institution with recognized expertise in the study of forced labour, child labour, and human trafficking.

Overview

Human trafficking, forced labour, and child labour, sometimes referred to as modern slavery, are pervasive and unacceptable human rights violations that take place around the world. Their hidden nature is supported by the globally distributed and complex nature of supply chains. Alongside many international partners, Canada has committed to combatting these human rights violations, including in its own supply chains.

Prevalence and who is vulnerable

The lack of suitable tracking and identification of at-risk areas makes it harder to know whether human trafficking, forced labour, or child labour was used in the creation of a product and if so, to what extent.

Prevalence

No region of the world is spared from forced labour.

Asia and the Pacific region have the highest prevalence of forced labour and child labour, with more than half of the estimated global total. Even if risk is relatively low in Canada, tens of thousands of people are estimated to live in modern slavery here (Global Slavery Index).

Who is vulnerable

Anyone can fall victim to forced labour, but particularly vulnerable people include those:

• fleeing political instability or natural disasters
• experiencing economic hardship
• with psychological or emotional difficulties
• with language barriers who lack a social safety net and connection with the wider community (source: US Blue Campaign)

In Canada, the marginalization of Indigenous populations exposes Indigenous communities to particular risks (Research by the National Task Force on Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada).

Traffickers are known for using violence (physical, sexual, or psychological) as well as fraudulent employment agencies and false promises of education or employment opportunities. This may result in exploitative working conditions, including:

• enforcing excessive hours
• withholding wages
• restricting movement
• withholding identity documents
• physical, sexual, or psychological abuse (or the threat of)
• being forced to work in unsafe and unsanitary conditions

Not every violation of labour rights or case of exploitative working conditions will meet the definitions of human trafficking, forced labour, or child labour. However, these practices can create situations which lead more easily to these more severe and violent forms of exploitation, and can indicate their presence.

It can be difficult to detect if people are acting under coercion or threats. Individuals may not realize they are victims of human trafficking, forced labour, or child labour. Sources of information on workers' rights might be withheld or manipulated by those exploiting them. Investigating can sometimes lead to the affected persons trying to further hide their circumstances. For example, fear of deportation or loss of vital income can lead an individual to avoid reporting exploitative practices.

Supply chain risks: Business and human trafficking

Businesses are responsible for identifying risks of human trafficking. These risks stem from both:

• internal factors such as business structure and products supplied
• external factors such as the:
  • demands of the supply chain
  • location of the business or of key parts of their supply chain

It can be difficult to detect the risk of human rights violations within complex global supply chains. But support is available to help businesses build their capacity to identify those risks.

Internal business risks

Internal risks may include:

• normalization of poor standards in business conduct, which support minor violations (such as unpaid overtime or poor working conditions)
• lack of adequate policies that address risk management and mitigation
• lack of awareness, commitment, and action within business operations to prevent human trafficking, forced labour, and child labour
• products requiring high input of low-cost labour
• workers owing a debt to an organization

Risks are not limited to these factors. Risk factors can have impacts beyond an organization’s structure. For example, workers can be manipulated into debt to an organization. This could pressure them into engaging their children to pay off that debt. This is of particular risk at working locations outside of business headquarters.

External business risks

External risks may stem from the following:

Supply chain requirements and activities of business partners

• Complex supply chains that make it hard to track the quality and standards maintained by the businesses involved
• Products requiring materials with known links to human trafficking, forced labour, and child labour
  • This is not always easy to avoid, especially when materials are sourced from external businesses

Influence of local contexts

• Corruption: businesses of large enough scale can attempt to influence government behaviour
• Gaps in legislation, enforcement, and access to justice: any government could have gaps in laws which may result in inadvertently allowing human trafficking, forced labour, and child labour to continue.
  • This may include:
    • lack of updated labour laws
    • limited standards surrounding child labour
    • limited resources to dedicate to anti-slavery focused legislative teams in law enforcement and the judiciary
• Vulnerability of workers: it can be easier for businesses to sell products made by forced or child labour to other organizations without their knowledge when there are:
  • many migrant workers
  • workers prepared to travel long distances to work
  • workers prepared to work for less than required minimum wage
• Dependency on children: where there are gaps in legislation regarding wages, workers’ earnings may not be sufficient to meet families’ basic needs, and children may be forced to enter the workforce to support communities

Next steps

These risks are not exhaustive.

Businesses can better understand and identify risks when they are aware of the contexts in which their activities take place, and where key suppliers are based.

Businesses can increase awareness by:

• auditing recruitment organizations before sourcing their labour
• ensuring strong policy within the organization regarding employment practices
• auditing periodically (when sub-contracting) to maintain standards

• International and domestic expectations: Human rights and procurement