The International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF) promotes the sustainable management of the world’s responsible pole-and-line, handline and troll (collectively known as ‘one-by-one’) tuna fisheries while also recognising the importance of safeguarding the livelihoods they support.
IPNLF’s work to develop, support and promote one-by-one tuna fisheries is subsequently fully aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We believe effective and equitable global governance is essential to protect and restore the ocean, and this should be achieved by ensuring the participation of local and coastal communities in decision-making processes.
We are a non-profit organization that fights modern slavery using private sector approaches because we believe that these tactics have the greatest chance of impact – and that the private sector has the desire to stop slavery. We focus on systemic change because we seek to permanently break the cycle of modern slavery. We collaborate because we know that we are stronger when we work together rather than when we name and shame one another. We are ambitious because we know our work is urgent – and that it affects the lives of the most vulnerable people among us.
We bring years of experience working with companies and their many dedicated employees, providing practical tools, strategic thinking and a forum to join together and stop slavery in our lifetime. Our partners include many of the largest companies in the world as well as committed regional and local corporations.
Much of our work is comprised of technology-based tools with enormous potential for impact. Each of these tools solves a major problem – from auditors who do not speak the local dialect of factory workers, to under-utilized and disaggregated data, to falsified employment contracts.
We also harness people power because we know that it is individual decisions that have the biggest impact on modern slavery. We build much-needed awareness, commitment and collaboration among the business community using our Business Pledge Against Modern Slavery, sector-specific anti-slavery working groups (Finance, Footwear & Apparel, Hospitality, and Retail), and research and outreach with the Asia Pacific Bankers Alliance and ESG investing community, among other initiatives.
The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) is an international federation of trade unions representing workers employed, among other sectors, in aquaculture, fish and seafood growing and processing. The IUF is composed of 421 affiliated trade unions in 128 countries representing over 10 million workers. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland. From its founding in 1920, international labour solidarity has been the IUFå«s guiding principle. This principle is implemented through: building solidarity at every stage of the food chain, international organizing within transnational companies (TNCs) global action to defend human, democratic, and trade union rights.
SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 97,000 employees, SGS operates a network of more than 2,600 offices and laboratories around the world. As the leader in providing specialized business solutions that improve safety, quality and sustainability, SGS helps customers navigate an increasingly regulated world. SGS’s independent services add significant value to our customers’ operations and ensure business productivity whilst managing risk. Specific to the field of social accountability, SGS helps customers implement a Code of Conduct, and develop supply chains characterized by transparency and a long-term, systematic approach. This approach includes risk assessments, ongoing compliance assessments, data management and training to ensure that your business partners abide by your company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility. Around the world, SGS is improving trust between seafood trading partners. Whether in multi-stakeholder initiatives, or for specific clients and governments, SGS uses the combined resources of its safety, quality and sustainability/responsible business professionals. SGS’s follow-up assignments help close out the violations, and often through training, provide stakeholders with the tools and understanding to meet global and local compliance expectations. Through its Transparency One solution, SGS is helping brands map supply chains, and provide supply chain transparency and traceability. Additional work flows may add blockchain technology to secure the data. In the coming year, we expect to add mobile technology platforms and IoT to deliver information more efficiently and effectively thereby reducing risk completely.
SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 97,000 employees, SGS operates a network of more than 2,600 offices and laboratories around the world. As the leader in providing specialized business solutions that improve safety, quality and sustainability, SGS helps customers navigate an increasingly regulated world. SGS’s independent services add significant value to our customers’ operations and ensure business productivity whilst managing risk. Specific to the field of social accountability, SGS helps customers implement a Code of Conduct, and develop supply chains characterized by transparency and a long-term, systematic approach. This approach includes risk assessments, ongoing compliance assessments, data management and training to ensure that your business partners abide by your company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility. Around the world, SGS is improving trust between seafood trading partners. Whether in multi-stakeholder initiatives, or for specific clients and governments, SGS uses the combined resources of its safety, quality and sustainability/responsible business professionals. SGS’s follow-up assignments help close out the violations, and often through training, provide stakeholders with the tools and understanding to meet global and local compliance expectations. Through its Transparency One solution, SGS is helping brands map supply chains, and provide supply chain transparency and traceability. Additional work flows may add blockchain technology to secure the data. In the coming year, we expect to add mobile technology platforms and IoT to deliver information more efficiently and effectively thereby reducing risk.
The Labor Safe Screen is designed to help seafood companies identify and reduce the risk of slavery in their supply chains. It is a 5-part framework for seafood buyers, sellers and traders to use to reduce risks in work in the seafood sector. It includes supply chain mapping, risk identification based on findings by competent authorities, surveys to collect proof of protective conditions in the workplace, and support for implementing the minimum requirements in international law (code of conduct, universal contract, grievance mechanism, and disclosure of efforts). It includes a tiered approach for screening a large number of products. Combining data from suppliers and workers is a key feature. Users of the Labor Safe Screen manage risks with quantitative scoring and produce positive coverage for their goods and the people making them.
ILAB’s mission is to promote a fair global playing field for workers in the United States and around the world by enforcing trade commitments, strengthening labor standards, and combating international child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking. The bureau is comprised of three offices: the Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, the Office of Trade and Labor Affaris, and the Office of International Relations and Economic Research. For more information about the work of each office, see https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/about-us/mission.
Tools for Ethical Seafood Sourcing (TESS) is a web tool that points you to a whole host of useful (and free) resources which can help businesses address social responsibility challenges in their seafood supply chains. TESS launched in March 2017 as a one-stop-resource-shop. It starts with an overview of the social issues impacting on the seafood supply chain. Seafish recognised that with so many different sources of information available on ethical issues, which range from identifying issues through to international standards and ‰Û÷on the ground‰Ûª initiatives working on the issues, it can be challenging for seafood businesses to understand this complex landscape and then decide what they need to do to identify issues and make improvements. This is where TESS can help. TESS charts a straight-forward business improvement cycle. All the featured resources (presented as interactive records) are linked to one of six steps in this cycle which has been designed to help systematically tackle issues in seafood supply chains. All the information is publicly available on external websites, so you are taken to the source of the information. The benefit of TESS is that it brings all these resources together in one place. As well as following the six step approach there is a fully searchable database so that you can find all this information on initiatives, standards and organisations very simply.
The Seafood Slavery Risk Tool (SSRT) was designed to Inform businesses about the risks of forced labor, human trafficking, and hazardous child labor in fisheries. The Risk Tool‰Ûªs methodology is being revised to identify the risks of forced labor, human trafficking, and hazardous child labor in seafood systems, including the fishing, farming and processing sectors.
Naturland is one of the major international associations for organic agriculture and promotes organic farming worldwide. Currently over 65,000 farmers, bee-keepers, fish farmers and fishers in 58 countries are working according to the Naturland Standards. The Naturland organic agriculture certification program is unique in that, unlike other organic certifications (e.g. the USDA’s National Organic), Naturland has included social responsibility into the standard with equal weight. In November 2006, the Naturland Assembly of Delegates adopted the first Standards for Sustainable Capture Fishery. The Naturland Wildfish certification standards approach sustainability holistically and include ecological, social, and environmental dimensions. Naturland Wildfish Social Responsibility standards include: – respect of basic human rights as listed in UN conventions and ILO conventions and/or recommendations; – freedom to accept or reject employment; -freedom of association and/or access to trade unions; – equal treatment and opportunities; – the complete absence of child labor; – basic health and safety provisions; – employment contracts; – fair wages; – payment in kind; – fair working hours; and – basic coverage for maternity, sickness, and retirement.
The Pew Charitable Trusts‰Ûª ending illegal fishing project is working to ensure a sustainable future for our oceans by combatting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. As unscrupulous operators seek to maximize profits by exploiting fish stocks or loopholes in management they frequently pay little attention to the safety and working conditions for vessel crews. Fortunately, the seafood industry can implement tools that help tackle these issues together. Pew is bringing together stakeholders from governments, authorities, and the seafood industry, to change behaviors and significantly reduce IUU fishing by improving the oversight and knowledge of fishing activities. An element of this includes entry into force of the International Maritime Organization‰Ûªs Cape Town Agreement (CTA), an international treaty which sets minimum safety standards and inspection criteria for fishing vessels. Harmonized implementation of the CTA, alongside the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations‰Ûª Agreement Port State Measures, which aims to prevent illegally caught fish from entering ports, and the International Labour Organization‰Ûªs Work in Fishing Convention, which establishes the base requirement for decent working and living conditions on board ships, will reap rewards. The seafood industry is in a unique position to help, it can advocate for governments to put such policies in place. By mandating that vessels can be uniquely identified and tracked, catch subject to port controls and transshipment activity monitored, tracking and tracing the people and product in supply chains should be possible. By doing this opportunities for the exploitation of fisheries and fishers will be reduced.
The Solidarity Center is the largest U.S.-based international worker rights organization helping workers attain safe and healthy workplaces, family-supporting wages, dignity on the job and greater equity at work and in their community. Allied with the AFL-CIO and working with 400-plus labor unions, NGOs, human rights defenders and community groups, the Solidarity Center assists workers across the globe as, together, they fight discrimination, exploitation and the systems that entrench poverty. It supports programs‰ÛÓe.g., trainings, education campaigns, legal aid, research and transparency initiative‰ÛÓthat help workers understand and exercise their rights, improve their working and living conditions, and build independent unions, including in the fishing and seafood sectors. The Solidarity Center has issued several publications on the fish and seafood sector, including: The Plight of Shrimp-Processing Workers of Southwestern Bangladesh (2012), Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Migrant Fishing Boat Workers in Thailand (2009), and The True Cost of Shrimp (2008).