LONDON: Technology giant Apple won an international award for making details of its supply chains public in a bid to boost transparency and help end modern slavery.
Since 2012 Apple says it has reduced the number of underage workers in its extended supply chain, which includes locations where rare earth minerals are mined for use in smartphones.
Labour rights groups had previously criticised Apple and its biggest manufacturing partner Foxconn for excessive overtime, hiring underage workers and failing to provide health insurance.
“One of the deepest commitments that Apple has a company is to leave the world better than we found it,” Angela Ahrendts, head of retail at Apple, said during Trust Conference in London, which is hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“As a company whose work touches the lives of so many people, we feel we have an enormous responsibility, and an enormous opportunity, to turn our values into action,” she said, receiving the prize designed by British sculptor Anish Kapoor.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation Stop Slavery Award recognises efforts by companies to identify, investigate and eradicate forced labour from their supply chains.
Consumer goods giant Unilever was the other winner of the annual award, while financial services firm Standard Chartered and Thailand-based seafood producer Thai Union were highly commended for their work. More than 40 million people are estimated to be trapped as slaves in forced labour and forced marriages, most of them women and girls, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and rights group Walk Free Foundation.
Nearly 25 million work in factories, on construction sites, farms, fishing boats and as domestic or sex workers, says ILO.
With slavery now considered a major global issue, there is growing scrutiny on initiatives to meet a UN goal to end by 2030 a trade estimated to raise annual illicit gains of $150 billion for traffickers. Businesses are under increased pressure from both governments and consumers to disclose what actions they are taking to ensure their supply chains are free from slavery. — Reuters
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
