Due diligence and trafficking in persons 2015, para. 40
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- Human rights due diligence on trafficking is also relevant in the activities of non-State actors, such as business enterprises, trade unions and employer organizations. As with all other non-State actors, States have an obligation to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and punish trafficking through their laws and policies toward business entities. This includes, for example, general rules requiring that businesses respect human rights and mandating that they undertake some form of human rights due diligence, as well as specific conditions on how States will conduct commercial transactions with business enterprises, including in their public procurement activities (e.g., by including a zero tolerance policy towards trafficking in contractual clauses and more generally revising public procurement procedures to prevent abusive and fraudulent recruitment). Other good practices include that in Brazil, where the Government "maintains public records of individuals and corporations identified by labour inspectors to be using or to have used slave labour", who then subsequently "face financial sanctions, including fines and denial of national subsidies, tax exemptions and loans from State banks." Disclosure requirements in domestic legislation that mandate companies to make their anti-trafficking policy, if they have one, transparent, is a recent form of State practice that could be strengthened by mandating that companies have such anti-trafficking policies in place and report on their implementation. Recruitment agency licensing to regulate recruitment practices and to require that workers are not charged recruitment fees can be a particularly effective form of State practice to reduce the vulnerability of migrants to trafficking. For example, "some countries in the Americas, including Peru, have explicitly prohibited recruitment agencies from engaging in trafficking and from charging workers any recruitment fees". Additionally, Indonesia and Nepal, "alongside a licensing process, there is a system by which workers can report abuses committed by recruitment agencies to the government."
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Paragraph number
- 40
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