New interviews with Bangladeshi garment workers make clear that a climate of fear and intimidation prevails in the country’s industry, two and a half years after the Rana Plaza building collapse and the launch of the first industrial reform programs to address the pervasive fire and structural hazards in Bangladeshi garment factories.

On November 16, police in Jizzak city, Uzbekistan, arrested Uktam Pardaev, a human rights defender, in apparent retaliation for his documentation of the Uzbek government’s use of forced labor in the cotton sector. The arrest is the latest in a series of increasingly frequent and severe reprisals against human rights defenders in Uzbekistan.
 

San Francisco, CA – In the wake of serious reports of modern day slavery, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)––the palm oil industry certification system––recently released an audit report assessing compliance for three estates of RSPO-member, and Malaysian palm oil giant, FELDA. The audit found several major issues with FELDA operations, which would put the palm oil grower in non-compliance with the RSPO standard, resulting in a “fundamental failure to achieve the objective of the relevant RSPO requirements.”

Six months after receiving a complaint that Norges Bank Investment Management’s holdings of Daewoo International supports forced labor, Norway’s National Contact Point (NCP) for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) decided to close the complaint without further examination.

Seventy-two workers, many of whom were women, were burned to death and 20 more are still missing in the biggest factory fire that hit the Philippines – the fire that gutted the factory of Kentex Manufacturing Incorporated last May 13, 2015. The company, located along Tatalon Street in Barangay Ugong in Valenzuela City, manufactures rubber slippers for sale and distribution in various parts of the Philippines.

In 2014, the government of Uzbekistan forced more than a million of its own citizens to pick cotton, and officials extorted individuals and businesses, including multinational companies, at a larger scale as part of the annual Uzbek cotton harvest, according to a new report released by the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights (UGF). 

Campaigners are calling for compensation to victims of the world's worst ever garment factory disaster as an Avaaz petition, demanding that Italian fashion giant Benetton finally pay compensation to the victims of Rana Plaza, is set to top one million signers.
The petition adds to ongoing campaign efforts by the Clean Clothes Campaign and the International Labor Rights Forum, urging multinational brands to contribute to the fund for the victims of the 24 April 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As the holiday chocolate buying season moves into high gear in the United States, a report out today sheds light on the struggle of West African cocoa farmers to earn decent livelihoods, despite increasing demand for cocoa and higher prices. Approximately 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.