While the US government is targeting human trafficking, companies must take ultimate responsibility for their supply chains

A new executive order from the US president, Barack Obama, requires all US government contractors and subcontractors to ensure they do not engage directly or indirectly in forced labour. The measures mirror laws passed in California two years ago with the purpose to “provide consumers with information regarding [companies’] efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains”.

“Our fight against human trafficking is one of the great human rights causes of our time,” Obama said, announcing the order shortly before his re-election. More than 20 million people around the world are ensnared in trafficking, according to the White House.

The executive order reinforces an existing zero-tolerance policy on trafficking in government contracting and requires compliance measures for overseas contracts and subcontracts of more than $500,000. These include an employee awareness programme, a process to report violations without retaliation, and recruitment and housing plans.

Obama has pledged more training and guidance to federal prosecutors, law enforcement officials and immigration judges, as well as to commercial transportation officials, state and local law enforcement partners and state workforce agencies and educators.

This would help ensure that “victims are always treated as victims and not criminals,” he said.

Now for action

Human rights NGO Stop The Traffik has praised Obama’s adoption of the California law on a federal level but cautions against complacency.

“It is excellent that anti-human trafficking is on top of the agenda for President Obama, as this will inspire others to also make it a priority,” says Jantine Werdmuller von Elgg, global project officer at Stop The Traffik.

But she argues that putting legislation in place won’t necessarily bring about change. “It is only employees taking action in a company that will disrupt the global trade in people.”

Von Elgg also cites imminent UK legislation that has much the same thrust as the US law. The proposed Transparency in UK Company Supply Chains (Eradication of Slavery) Bill is expected to resume its second reading debate in January 2013.

Obama also announced more resources for services and legal assistance to victims of trafficking, including the launch of $6m in special awards – with support from the Goldman Sachs Foundation – for local communities to develop collaborative and comprehensive solutions to help trafficking victims.

Laurel Bellows, president of the American Bar Association (ABA), also welcomes the executive order and says she expects a uniform law against trafficking to apply in the US from next July or August 2013, covering the whole private sector as well as the state.

More than 100,000 US citizens are in slavery today, and that excludes “tens of thousands of men, women and children who are brought over our borders and subjected to captivity for sex or labour for the profit of their captors,” Bellows says.

In Chicago alone 16,000 underage girls are forced into prostitution each year, though Seattle and Atlanta are the main hubs, Bellows says.

“We have to make certain that every single employer in this country incorporates into a handbook or short presentation a basic plan for all employees to sign off when they join and at the end of every year: how do you identify a victim and what’s the hotline number to call if you think you have.”  

Bellows concluded: “Americans have to understand that they all have a job they can do on this issue.”<span style="font-size:12.0pt;Times New Roman" ,"serif";"="">