AMBASSADOR SARAH MENDELSON'S REMARKS ON PREVENTING TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks on Combatting the Trafficking of Women and Girls: What Role Can the Private Sector Play in Addressing and Preventing Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery

Ambassador Sarah Mendelson

U.S. Representative for Economic and Social Affairs

U.S. Mission to the United Nations

New York City

March 16, 2016

AS DELIVERED

Thank you distinguished delegates, guests, and panelists for joining us today. Thank you to our experts who helped put this event together. Now, I want to talk to you about the moment – why we’re here – the call to action, and end with a final word of caution.

The moment - in September, the international community came together in agreement over an ambitious set of priorities. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development presents an unprecedented opportunity to invest in our collective future and achieving progress on the world’s most significant social, economic, and environmental challenges. Among those, of course, is combatting the buying and selling of humans – an industry that is estimated to generate annual profits of $150 billion. Specifically, with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, Member States have targeted trafficking. We have agreed to end trafficking in Target 5.2, “to eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation,” Target 8.7, “to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery, and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms,” and Target 16.2, “to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence and torture against children.” This is a universal agenda and applies to all of us. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs shift accountability from recipients and donors to relationships between states and people. Governments, companies, nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, and citizens all have an essential role to play in making the SDGs real.

The call – so we want to seize this opportunity and explore the possibility of building new and creative partnerships to broaden constituencies specifically to combat human trafficking. We envision this as a network of networks. Each of us as consumers has a unique ability to leverage our individual economic power to influence existing markets and create new ones where workers are free from coercion and the exploitation associated with human trafficking. Consumers, cash in hand, have the power to steer this conversation from responsibilities to results. This is no easy task and cannot be achieved in silos. We look forward to continuing this conversation beyond the walls of this chamber.

Let me give you a snap shot of what we are thinking about and encourage you to engage us with your ideas. Along with other Missions and the UN Global Compact, the U.S. Mission is interested in building a coalition of Member States and CEOs of major companies that commit to making their supply chains free of forced labor. Of course, we welcome partnerships with other members of the UN family, such as UNODC and the ILO. This initiative should be understood as part of our broader effort to address cross-cutting themes, goals, and targets to jump start implementation of the SDGs, specifically Goal 5 “gender equality”, Goal 8 “decent work and economic growth,” and Goal 16 “peace, justice, and strong institutions.”

There is no set way to do this. One possibility is that corporate partners would be chosen by member state’s capitals and drawn from a specific list of industries, such as cocoa, coffee, electronics, seafood, mining, and textiles for example. Founding members could agree on an outcome document, financial commitments, and/or a social marketing campaign to ensure domestic and international outreach on the issue of eradicating human trafficking from public and private sector supply chains.

However the coalition comes together, we hope to launch in the coming months, either at a side event during the High Level Political Forum held under the auspices of ECOSOC in July 2016 in New York or in the lead up to the high-level ministerial week in mid-September 2016. This gathering would present an opportunity to share best practices and build a commitment to establish a growth plan from 2016 to 2030 to increase the numbers of Member States and companies to advance SDG implementation as it relates to human trafficking.

Some member states have shared ideas on what shape this could take, who should be engaged, and how best to engage the private sector. Some have expressed interest in engaging civil society. Others are keen to use technology to map supply chains. Understanding how supply chains operate, where key suppliers are located, and what working conditions exist in those locations and sectors is vital to helping a company gain control of its supply chain and target areas with high risks for human trafficking. Some of have suggested creating an UN-related Hub to build on existing efforts with free training courses and case studies. Many have noted that companies prefer “peer-to-peer” engagement, or B2B, approaches when resolving forced labor issues, as these remain crimes and can be problematic for brands. We are agnostic how this effort comes together. What we want to see is member states and companies and consumers agreeing to take action to make supply chains free of forced labor and therefore helping make the SDGs real.

We recognize there is a lot of action in this space. This is sort of the flavor of the month. But so far, work on this has not been closely linked either to the UN or to the SDGs. And here we see this effort as additive: if successful, it would be the first collaboration between multiple member states and the private sector to address human trafficking ideally in both private and public sector supply chains over the next 15 years.

We can work together so that governments enforce labor laws and treat all workers fairly and business can create anti-trafficking policies that acknowledge and address the risks in their industries, operations and supply chains, ensure workers have the right to fair compensation and redress, train staff to understand the indicators of human trafficking, and put remediation plans in place. Governments should set clear expectations for businesses on this issue and adopt policies that promote greater transparency and better reporting on clean supply chain efforts.

I want to end on a note of caution, however. Thank you to all of the panelists for being here today, but I have to admit, for all the talk about how this is the flavor of the month, it was not easy getting representatives from the private sector here today. When my expert called one corporate contact, the first thing the person said was, “Ouch – why would a company want to attend an event on trafficking in their industry? Wouldn’t that make them look bad?” Thankfully, not all companies are concerned about optics. The State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has partnered with executives at the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition, a coalition of more than 100 electronics companies with a combined annual revenue greater than $3 Trillion committed to supporting the rights of workers. Similarly, there are partnerships to address trafficking in supply chains between companies themselves, such as the Global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking, GBCAT. But under their breath, colleagues will tell you, this is no easy task. We hope that corporate coalitions to support SDG implementation, such as Impact2030, and UN Global Compact will be partners in this effort.

As I noted at the top, we are still very much in the idea phase of this effort and we welcome input, advice, and engagement as we hope to build out the Circle of Champions.