28 Million Victims and $236 Billion in Profits-Tackling the Forced Labor Crisis

Machine Automated Transcript: Hello trade professionals. Welcome to another episode of The simply trade podcast news edition, but today is an even different edition, because I’m with Renee cucarelli, hi, Renee, how are you?Hi Anna, good. How are you?I am doing great. I’m so excited. We’ve been kind of talking about doing this episode. I don’t know if we foreshadowed it. I don’t remember if I said anything, but we’re talking on forced labor. So forced labor has become such a, you know, huge thing talked about in the logistic supply chain area. So we wanted to go kind of deeper, and also, especially because GTC has a new course now. So we kind of want to dive deeper into, you know what it is, what we can do, what are some of the, some of the real stories that are out there, and kind of shining light on different kind of air, on different type of areas, on forced labor, and how we can help you? So that’s really it, right? Renee. And Renee is the perfect person, because she’s the one who’s doing the course also, so I can’t wait to pick her brain today. Thank you, Renee, for giving up your brain for this nice podcast episode. So at first, I am going to go ahead and do the honor and define forced labor for you guys. That’s what I’m going to do. And then I’m going to go ahead and get with Renee and ask her some questions, and she’ll shine light on it. So according to the International Labor Organization, forced labor is defined as all work or service which is extracted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered him herself voluntarily. So in Gen Z words, that would be like, you’re doing something you don’t want to do, okay, and you’re really not getting paid for it anyways.In Gen X terms, it’s like, wrong.

It’s like, don’t do it. Yeah, it’s so wrong here. But I wanted to ask you, Renee, so forced. I feel like

It’s like, don’t do it. Yeah, it’s so wrong here. But I wanted to ask you, Renee, so forced. I feel like

there’s so many statistics out there. But one of the what are some of the important statistic related to forced labor in this area, like that people might not even know nowadays?

Yeah, sure, definitely. Well, I mean, we’ll give you a few. For example, the main numbers, how many people are in forced labor, and it’s close to 28 million. The ILO, on their website, has 27.6 so I think we can say 28 million in profit wise, like, how much profit is being made on these people that are in forced labor, these individuals, 236 billion. I mean, it’s that is insane. It’s insane 39.4 so almost 40% are women and girls, and 12% are children, which really is just, I get so down about that. Yeah, that’s really, I don’t like that. And migrant workers are three times more likely to be at risk of forced labor,

because we always talk on like the trade side. But I feel like the people that are involved with it sometimes might like, obviously, most people know that they’re under forced labor, but some people might not even understand that that’s where they’re caught, categorized in, because they might be like, you know, this is the only job I can get. And so this works for me right now, but they don’t even know that what is happening is forced labor. That’s

true when we during my research and doing some of this, we, I found a good website. I think we’ll talk about it, but it talks about individual voices, and they don’t Anne, you’re so right? They have sometimes they this is so accepted and natural. And even their family, a lot of this is not endorsed, but, you know, passed down in their family, because they don’t know the difference, right? The mom says, No, you have to go with me. You know, that’s what we do,

yeah, and, and so, I mean, for me, as a person working with trade, I’m obviously not really in the sector as you or other people. But forced labor hasn’t really come up to me as much before, like the probably the last, and this year is the year where I really, kind of started, wow, this is really happening. You know, this is out there, and people are getting fined for this, and people are coming after different Oregon. Organizations. Now you know where it’s getting, like you need to be educated. But how has forced labor changed in the last, you know, decade to like, has it been a significant change? Or what? What is your opinion on that? Well, again,

the ill is such a great organization, the International Labor Organization, they track a lot of forced labor information reports. They have so much stuff, we’ll talk about that. But they released a report in March 2024, and their prior report was 2014 so 10 years ago, exactly a decade. And this edition includes profits, you know, in poverty, which the first one didn’t in 2014 so that’s where they came with the 22 $36 billion number. So they’ve added that, but it’s changed dramatically. It’s alarming. The volume of labor in the last 10 years, how much it’s increased, it’s just and what’s happening, you know, to simplify it, is there’s more people in forced labor and higher levels of profit. So they’re taking more more people are in it, and they’re taking more from them over the last decade. That’s the long and short of it. But you can find the report. It’s 48 pages long,

yeah. And you know what I I always think of other countries like such as China, you know where this is occurring, but this is something that’s also occurring in the United States, correct, correct. And you

occurring, but this is something that’s also occurring in the United States, correct, correct. And you

don’t even think of that. And, you know, these people know what they’re doing. I mean, they’re not, you know, this is not new news to them. It’s, it’s something that they well are very much well aware of, and they’re profiting such high profits from it. So do you think that has become better? Like that? Rate has gone down. I’m not sure if you have looked into that. But how much is happening in the United States, at least? Oh, and

the United States individually, I haven’t looked into but and it’s not when you look at the numbers, Southeast Asia, you know, Central America, there are other regions that tend to have higher volumes, but some of that is because their populations are a little less so when you’re talking about numbers and stats, you know, sometimes it’s comparing apples to oranges, but Asia is primarily where there’s significant amount that’s tracked, at least, right? But, you know, so some of it, I don’t know the numbers in the US we but um, there, there’s definitely forced labor here.

So, so crazy, like such. You know, you would think that, as a forward country, something like that wouldn’t be happening. But so are there other agencies involved in forced labor, and what are their resources? Because I know you’ve been talking a little bit about certain agencies, but what are the resources that are out there? Well,

one, obviously, well, there’s, you know, we’ve talked about the ILO, and then there’s the US Department of Labor. They have a great resource, great website with a lot of information. And on there they, they work with the International Labor Affairs Bureau. It’s funny because it’s i l, a, b. Oh, you know what? I’ll tell you, the one the bureau. They call themselves the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, but actually their acronym is i L, A, I L, A, B, so it doesn’t actually add up, but, but it’s one in the same. But anyway, they invest they do a lot of research. They have tools they, you know, regarding child labor and forced labor. They’re they do a lot on child labor. They have something that is similar to some of the automation tools that are out there for us, like, say, Ari and, you know, measure IO. They have a tool called the better trade tool, and it integrates some of the information, the reports and data they’re finding with us import trade data. So it’s another tool you can look at. And I think we did a podcast on this, the supply trace tool, which was done by Northeastern that’s also a free tool. So this

tool, tools that, sorry, these are tools that or businesses can use, right?

Yeah, and they so they take trade, they take data about forced labor and integrate, in this case, the the better trade tool integrates Harmonized Tariff numbers with the the forced labor data and mapping, right? You can see what’s going on related to your product line. So that’s a pretty cool tool. Another thing they have is an app. And the app, let me it’s called, I think they call it swift and toil. It’s child labor, forced labor. And human trafficking around the world. And basically, again, it takes these reports and it puts them into your, you know, your palm, you know, like you said, Gen Z, we need, we need stuff on our phone, but the things you can do in that app are check the country’s efforts for what they’re doing to reduce forced labor, which I think is awesome, I’m starting to personally take commitment on this and be committed to what am I buying, right? Because the consumers have a responsibility to the to this forced labor, child labor issue. So you can check what countries efforts, to

check the efforts of certain countries in this app, what are they doing? You can check the child labor data, like, where is it occurring? To your point, we could go in this app and look up the United States and find data. We could browse goods with child labor. So if I’m buying, you know, this white jacket, maybe I want to know, was it made with child or forced labor. Review different laws and ratifications and enforcement efforts. So that’s you can keep up to date in the app what’s going on. See what governments can do to we have that to end child labor. And you can browse the US Department of Labor’s project. So they’re always implementing new projects to fight this. Yeah, so it’s cool. I so those are some of the resources, personally and professionally that can help you, you know, commit your company to ending and eliminating forced labor and maybe even personally ending and eliminating

I love that. I love that you shared the personal one too, because I think we are so invested in business, and you know about making money, and it’s like, very high on our agenda, right? Because so that’s how we live, and so we don’t sometimes think about people that are affected, or if we are part of affecting others, such as, you know, buying from different from certain companies, and knowing they’re using forced labor, or there might be using first labor, which is kind of a fine line, like, that’s sucks you I feel like you need to have official data to know, you know they’re doing it, and you won’t buy from them anymore, because you don’t want to Just stop buying from certain companies, and then they’re not even using forced labor just because they’re close to an area or, you know, so but I kind of like that we are looking at both like business wise and personal.

I do too. I I read recently that Adidas changed their supply chain. They’re getting their plastic out of the ocean for, you know, instead of procuring it from a, you know, a supplier, they’re actually using plastic that’s dumped in the ocean, which I thought was really cool. I’m like, I need to buy a pair of Adidas. No, but that’s kind of interesting, yeah.

And I think the first, well, to me, I would say the first thing big companies that are really known and out there, like Adidas, Nike, you know, all the apple, like all those big companies that you know could, if they get, if they get fined, if they go through a lawsuit, they are going to lose money, but they’re gonna, like, statistically, they’re probably gonna be fine. Um, but I think so for them to, you know, change their ways, and making an active effort means so much more, because they have the money to pay if they, if they get filed, you know, even, even though it will hurt them, like, ultimately, they’ll be fine, like a small business, if it comes back down to them, they’ll, they’re going to be done and and I think this is also, you know, yeah, we want our, well, I’m talking about our course a little bit now, but yeah, we want to be there for these big corporations. But these small businesses are the ones that are really gonna go down the drain if they’re using forced labor, maybe even only by accident. Maybe they don’t know. This is why it’s so important that you have to just be proactive. And, you know, go out there and see what can I because this is an issue that’s out there, whether you’re you’re affected or not. So you need to get in, get your foot into the door and see you know how you can know about this and do better. And maybe, if you are affected, how can you solve this problem? But first off, let’s talk a little bit more about an individuals that are involved in forced labor. So are there any stories out there with people that are impacted where maybe people can look at it and they’re like, you know, use it for marketing. Use it for for food, to inform other people, like, what are there any? Yeah,

of course, the ILO has something called Voices. And literally, I mean, there’s dozens there. The actual people sometimes talking, sometimes you can just. Read the story, and I was reading a few because

I’m interested. I want to know what’s going on. You really get the inside scoop. And, you know, like I

I’m interested. I want to know what’s going on. You really get the inside scoop. And, you know, like I said earlier, it gives us, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to help, right? And these organized ill US Department of Labor, like I mentioned, they have projects there. It’s amazing what they’re doing. So like, for example, there was a domestic worker. I read one of the stories. It’s a seven minute read. They’re not long, or you can, like, I said, Listen to them. She was in Indonesia. They she had, she was married and had a nine month old, but she decided to become a domestic worker. They sent her to Asia, and they said, hey, you know, take this test about working domestically. Well, she thought it was odd, but anyway, the group of people she was with, they all failed. And they said, Sorry, you know what? You’re gonna have to go back to Indonesia, and that’s and then they said, By the way, since we paid for you to come here and take this test, you owe us $1,200 or whatever it is, you know. And so now they’re in debt, right? And so they they told them, You can’t leave. And to make a long story short, she was with one family, and they were beating her, not feeding her. So she escaped. She went to another family, and then she was abused and also beaten and burned. I mean, it was just a horrific story, but she got out. And you know how she got out? She was so sick Anne that they get, they just got rid of her. They just dumped her off into a plantation, and somebody found her and took her to the hospital, thank goodness, and she recovered. And then they actually went this, the families and the agency, they went to prison, the people that were responsible. So great ending, great ending, thank goodness. But there are so many stories like that. And then this, the ill has different projects, like I mentioned one of them. They’re working on training people. You’ll see a lot of stories in there, how they’re taking some of the people in forced labor and training them, like, for example, Hey, you don’t to me to get water out of your Well, why don’t you use a pulley they don’t understand. To your point, it’s a, it’s a generational issue, where their their families did the same thing, and they learned from their families, right? And we, I mean, you know me too. I’ve learned from my family all my stuff that’s dysfunctional, right? So unless you learn differently, you don’t know. So this, there’s, there’s a project called Win, which is work improvement, neighborhood development. There’s, there’s something that they’re doing in Africa to help force labor workers understand, hey, I have rights. Number one. Here’s the laws. They teach them, the laws they they give them tools. They tell them you need rest. You know, build a shelter. Like there’s a couple stories where the people would, the migrant workers, would go out, and they said they were so fatigued and exhausted from the heat, but the the employers never gave them a rest or built a shelter area, right? So it was just very simple, build a shelter, yeah, take a rest every, you know, two hours for 10 minutes. And they said that was so dramatic in their work life, just having a shelter and a place to rest for 10 minutes. So the stories are phenomenal. I would definitely take a look. And like you said, there was another one, anec, a guy from Lithuania, who went to UK, the UK, and he was in forced labor in the UK. So you you don’t think that I

love UK, you don’t sad, I know

you don’t think it happened, like you said, in the US or the UK or wherever these places, but they do. It happens all over the place. So,

yeah, and, you know, with all this happening, have the, and we’ve talked about kind of the timeline a little bit, but have there been recent updates to forced labor regulations? Like, are people aware of there being changes? And, you know, they it could crucially affect a business. But have there been any such update?

Well, this is, this is the other thing I want to mention too, that same group has a podcast. So, you know, our our listeners love podcasts, but the The ILO has a podcast called Future of Work. So yeah, but yes, there’s been changes, and this is where our course, I think, would be awesome. We have the there’s not a course on the market like global training centers, forced labor course, forced labor compliance, with emphasis on supply chain tracing, but we will go into in great depth, right? And and application of the concepts. So you’ll have an opportunity to apply the concepts, and we talk about the history, the law, the changes, and we’re going to talk about that in our course, our detailed course, but here July 9, which just this month, the forced labor Enforcement Task Force, that’s a mouthful. It’s F, l, e, t, fleckdeff, let def publish. Just second update to the Uyghur Forced Labor Act. And so they’ve expanded the entities to 68 and they, I think it was 20 in 2022 now it’s 68 so that’s pretty significant. And they’ve added more sectors to the high risk sector that they had identified. So originally it was tomatoes, cotton, polysilicon and apparel, and now they’ve added polyvinyl chloride, aluminum and seafood. And you probably ask yourself, what this is the polyvinyl chloride and the polysilicon? If you look up what products are made with those products, it’s solar panels, integrated circuits. Integrated circuits are in phones, TVs, computers and your polyvinyl chloride. There’s automotive parts. So see, they’re, they’re, there’s a lot of industries encompassed in these high risk sectors, when you actually understand what these raw materials make, right? So that’s, that’s as of July 9, and we talk about that in our class in detail. So that’s, that’s the changes. There was an EU. There wasn’t, there’s an, yeah, there’s something in the EU. This is from March 2024, but the good news is, the EU is now has a provisional agreement banning forced labor. So it’s going to be very similar to the to what the the Uyghur Forced Labor Act is. And

do you think there’ll be, um, you know, might have been, might or might be coming, updated regulations, like moving forward. So you probably just changing the Entity List, right? I

think. So yeah, and adding more sectors, and, yeah,

right when? And you think now they’re being faster with it, or they’re having a better team, because I think forced labor didn’t seem to be such a big deal, and now it’s like they’re coming after everyone.

Now Congress has said you’re going to do this customs, you know what? I mean, yeah, and the US anyway, yeah. And each country now is approving agreements. So each country’s like, you know what? This is an important objective. We need to focus on this. We need to have resources and funds. So I think it’s just gonna, like you said, it’s gonna become more and more enforcement and so people need to be educated and understand their role professionally as a trade compliance professional, and your role personally. What’s your you know, what’s your responsibility and opportunity personally,

and what can important, or what does an importer have to be aware of? Because I know in the course, it’s going to be for basically, the US importer, correct? And so what like, I kind of want to touch on this to give our I know we are giving you a lot of information, but this is probably, if you’re in US importer, you want to know this stuff, right? What do they need to be aware of?

The US importer needs to be aware of the Entity List, obviously, the high risk sectors. One of the documents we go over in the course is the CBP operational guidance. That’s super important to understand as a trade professional what operationally do you need to is customs expecting. Do you need to be aware of? You also need to be aware of the detention process for WRA, W RO, I’m sorry, withhold release orders and uflpa when shipments are being detained. What? What’s your role? What do you need to do? What’s the timeline we we discuss all that in the course. So that’s super important for the importer to be aware of. And what do they you know? What should an importer do? In my humble opinion, educate your team, and not just your trade. People you know, your your purchasing, your sourcing, your logistics. Everyone needs to be aware of forced labor. So educate your team, audit your supply chain. I mean, that’s obviously a no brainer. You do that for CT Pat, but you have to do it, obviously, in more detail. To the nth tier here for forced labor. Do mapping exercises. You know, color coded mapping, so you know where your your high risk is. Utilize some technology, understand what’s available to help you automate this and processes and procedures. And last but not least, you could leverage CTPAT, you know, because if people that are see in CT Pat are doing part of this, so that’s what I think an importer should do. And last but not least, take our course.

Well, you honestly. I mean, if I was a person, and I’m just being realistic, if an organization doesn’t implement these kind of steps, or has never done this, and you know forced labor is coming on the rising and you don’t know whether you’re affected by forced labor or maybe you’re in a critical area. Starting on this is not easy, because you kind. Confused and, or I would think that people might be confused, and so especially, that’s why GTC has decided, you know, to bring this course forward and, and I’m so glad we can talk about this, because it’s not just a regular course. I mean, it doesn’t even have just one instructor. And all of our courses just have one instructor, right? That’ll give you whatever we’re teaching in depth. But this one is way different, because we decided to do just regular teaching with a workshop, meaning like, real world experience, real world hands on. How do you fix it? How what do you do? What Renee kind of went over. And so I want to ask you, like, what are some things in the course that you’re like, No, this is what people need to know, and especially talk about your the people that are you’re doing it with, because it’s not just you teaching, it’s two other guys. So if you want to briefly touch on that,

yeah, for sure, we have Eric Hargraves. He has awesome experience with cost containment, supply chain security, years of experience. We have Sean Harwood, who was an attache in China for you Flippa when it was being implemented. And I’m so lucky to be teaching with these two. They their experience in supply chain and forced labor is just phenomenal. So they we take that the info, we obviously take their experience, we take the laws, the history, the regulations, the documents you need. We do interactive exercises, and then we actually do a wro uflpa crisis exercise in small groups. So we think that this, I think, and I know Eric and Sean probably think that the course will provide you a foundation application, and you’ll walk away knowing a lot more about forced labor and what your role is from as a trade professional, and how can You keep your company compliant?

Well, and you won’t know more if you don’t take the course. So you actually have, you know, you’ll have to actually, hands on do it to know, we can’t give you the full course here now, but I’m, yeah, I’m so glad we got to talk about this entire, you know, the subject matter of forced labor and understanding the business side, the personal side, how we as consumers can, you know, make a little bit of an effort. Do you have any last remarks, or anything you else you feel like was not said?

Well, I think we said a lot. We gave a lot of information, but I am very excited to teach this course. I actually, personally feel good about it. You know what I mean? I want to help our world stop this. So I think that you’ll, everyone who attends our course will find it beneficial, and you’ll have great working knowledge to apply to your job. And who doesn’t need that, right? Especially with new new regulations and changing regulations. So we’re here to help you as a one stop shop for forced labor.

I love that one. You know what? We do have a fun fact. I will not leave you guys without one, and it actually has to do with forced labor. So it’s called the tidy Whitey rally. Have you ever heard of it? Anyone? So basically, it’s to protest for you college is apparel made in fair conditions. So it we will share the link down below, but it’s kind of, I mean, it’s funny that, you know, in college, they’re taking these kind of initiatives. And if you are still in college listening, you know, maybe you should look this up and see if you can start something like that. So really, the problem is, workers make 1/3 of a living wage in 15 of the top 21 US garment importing countries. So the solution they’re giving is one way to help foreign workers is to make conscious buying decisions and to encourage retailers to provide cautious options. So organize an underwear themed protest to collect signatures advocating for your college to source apparel from factories that ensure fair working conditions and living wages, and so consider ways to participate that respect everyone’s comfort level, such as wearing the underwear over clothes or as part of a creative costume. I thought that’s so funny. I mean, like, that’s awesome. You should do if you’re still or if you have a child, you know, in college, not probably not a child anymore, but you have someone in college as a dad or a mom, whatever, you should tell them about this. So this is a great sitting around the dinner table kind of talk. I always say that it’s like fun to bring it up. Hey, have you heard about the tidy Whitey rally? Yeah?

I love the tiny white Valley. I just like to say I thought that

was interesting. So hopefully you can use it anyways. We are at the end of our podcast now, and we hope that you enjoyed it as much as our regular episodes. I definitely did. Thank you so much, Renee for coming on and sharing all your knowledge. And you know, if you really want the whole knowledge you need to take the course, guys, I’m sorry, but you’ll find that also tagged below and advertised on our website. Obviously. Thank you so much and have a great week.

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