‘Rethink Supply Chains’ – The Innovation Challenge to Fight Labour Trafficking

The Partnership for Freedom launched its ‘Rethink Supply Chains‘ competition last week, aimed at providing a technological solution to help fight labour trafficking in global supply chains.

In International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are 14.2 million people around the world who are victims of forced labour in industries such as agriculture, construction and manufacturing.

The goods and service provided through these industries are often purchased or used by consumers who are none the wiser, thanks to a lack of transparency in supply chains.

Formed in 2012, the Partnership for Freedom is an American-based public-private partnership, which brings together organisations and governmental departments such as the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and Steven Spielberg’s ‘Righteous Persons Foundation‘.

The Partnership challenges individuals and organisations to create innovative solutions to human trafficking challenges. In 2013, it launched its first Challenge, “Reimagine”, and granted $1.17 million to fund two winning innovative models, aimed at improving the infrastructure of support for survivors of modern slavery in the United States.

Challenge Two – Rethink

Now, Humanity United, the organisation leading The Partnership for Freedom, has announced the second challenge in its set of three – Rethink Supply Chains.

With a fund of $500,000 for winning solutions, Rethink Supply Chains seeks new ideas, tools, and efforts that use technology to combat and prevent labour trafficking in global supply chains.

The challenge encourages developers, designers, advocates, and innovators to focus on one or more of the following areas:

• Workers’ Voices: Tools that help workers to share information and foster community, access resources, and report labor violations to businesses, governments, NGOs, or each other in the most safe and secure ways possible.
• Recruitment: Tools to improve the transparency and accountability of the labor recruitment process, encourage responsible practices for employers and recruiters, and empower workers to more safely navigate the recruitment process.
• Traceability: Technologies that enable businesses, workers, governments, and NGOs to track, map, and/or share information on commodities, products, and labor conditions in supply chains at high risk of forced labor.

Eliminating Human Trafficking

Randy Newcomb, President and CEO of Humanity United, stated, “The scope of this issue is enormous. We need new actors, new skills, new data, new ideas and new energy to improve anti-trafficking efforts around the world.”

This was also emphasised by Ambassador Susan Coppedge of the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, who said, “Forced labor has no place in our global supply chains nor in the goods and services we buy every day.  We look forward to the innovative ideas and designs we anticipate from this Challenge as we seek to eliminate human trafficking from the global marketplace.”

How to Get Involved

All the details you need to know about the competition can be found here. The deadline for initial solution submission is the 13th of December, with finalists being announced during January 2016.

Entries can be submitted by individuals who are resident in the United States, or organisations with the United States as their primary location for business. Rules and Terms & Conditions can be found here.

If you can’t take part, you can support the campaign and follow the competition on social media, via Facebook and Twitter. Also stay tuned to Procurious, as we will publish the finalists next year and keep you all posted with the winning solutions.

If you are thinking about taking part, please let us know! We’d love to tell everyone your story and why you think your solution will help to end human trafficking and forced labour for good.