TITLE: How a Sugar Industry Stamp of Approval Hid Coerced Hysterectomies
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/world/asia/sugar-human-rights-bonsucro-india-hysterectomies.html
EXCERPT: Bags of sugar that leave the Dalmia Bharat Sugar mill in the western Indian city of Kolhapur come with an industry guarantee: It was harvested humanely, in fields free of child labor, debt bondage and abuse.
None of that is true.
The mill is certified by a group called Bonsucro, which sets the industry standard for sugar production. Brands including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and General Mills use the Bonsucro name to reassure customers that their supply chains demonstrate “respect for human rights,” even in places where abuses are widespread, like the region around the Dalmia mill.
But a New York Times investigation found that Bonsucro’s inspections were all but guaranteed not to find problems. Internal documents and interviews with sugar mill executives, experts and Bonsucro contractors show that mills retain tremendous control over what auditors see and whom they can talk to. The audits are carried out hurriedly — from the mill to the farms in a matter of days — and the details are kept secret, which prevents public second-guessing.
Even the auditor who said she inspected the Dalmia mill said turning up problems was extremely rare.
“I’ve been auditing for the last two years, and I have not found any violations,” said Swapnali Hirve, who said she also inspected a mill owned by NSL Sugars. Both mills are in the state of Maharashtra.
But women who cut sugar cane that ends up in these mills work in brutal conditions. In interviews, they told us that they were pushed into underage marriages so that they could cut sugar with their husbands. They were locked into years of debt by sugar mill contractors. Some, like thousands of other working-age women in this region, said they felt pressured to get unneeded hysterectomies to resolve common ailments like painful periods and keep working in the fields.
One woman we talked to said that a contractor for the NSL mill even lent her the money for the surgery.
Yet Bonsucro certified the Dalmia mill. Two framed certificates, bearing Bonsucro’s olive green logo, hung in the factory’s back room during a visit last fall. NSL’s mill also passed its inspections and is in the process of being certified, mill executives said last year.
TITLE: Forced labour and abuse ‘is rife in scampi fleet’
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/forced-labour-abuse-scampi-fleet-h9mcd0g6w
EXCERPT: Scores of foreign workers have been abused in Britain’s Scottish-dominated scampi fishing fleet, a global workers’ federation has claimed.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said it had uncovered forced labour or human trafficking issues estimated to have affected at least 138 crew members in UK waters.
The group said it had found seamen who did not get enough food and water or access to healthcare, as well as those who had been threatened or bullied.
It also alleged that it had discovered 62 vessels in the British fleet employed fishers without UK work permits.
Scotland accounts for about 70 per cent of Britain’s fishery for langoustines, which are used to make scampi and are often called “prawns” north of the border.
ITF criticised the scampi fishery improvement project (FIP) a little-known scheme to address labour problems in Britain’s fleet. The FIP, begun in 2019, is designed to give the industry an ethical and environmental kite-mark so consumers feel confident picking up scampi in supermarkets.
Chris Williams, a fisheries expert at the ITF, said: “The entire concept of certifying for labour issues at the fishery level is inadequate, ineffective, and risks ‘fair-washing’.
“What this ultimately means is that UK shoppers are completely unaware that they’re buying and consuming seafood tainted by forced labour.
“We want to see UK scampi on our plates — but we must ensure that it is both sustainable and caught by workers whose rights are respected.
“To do that, we must end superficial sourcing requirements like FIPs and introduce collective bargaining agreements, human rights due diligence and other binding agreements with genuine worker representation.”
The group said it had found 11 vessels that made fishers work excessive hours, 12 where staff were abused, bullied or threatened, and 14 where wages were delayed.
It also said four vessels had been reported for not recording accidents, and three for abandoning staff, by which it meant they were not paid for two months or more.
Six vessels, it claimed, had failed to provide foreign workers with enough food and water or hygienic living conditions. It is understood the ITF’s findings did not result in any action from the UK authorities.
Industry leaders have their own concerns about how foreign workers, some of whom come from southeast Asia, are treated.
This month the Scottish White Fish Producers Association (SWFPA), working with the ITF and the charity Focus on Labour Exploitation, began piloting a scheme in the northeast to certify vessel owners and provide assistance to foreign workers via an app.
The scheme is modelled on the Fair Food Programme pioneered for Mexican labourers on the tomato farms of Florida and backed by fast-food giant Taco Bell, among others.
TITLE: Migrant workers have long been too scared to report employer misconduct. A new visa could change this
https://theconversation.com/migrant-workers-have-long-been-too-scared-to-report-employer-misconduct-a-new-visa-could-change-this-235415
EXCERPT: The [Australian] government’s pilot introduces a new temporary “workplace justice visa”. This will allow a migrant to stay in Australia while they pursue a labour claim against their employer, which could include for underpayment, workplace injury, sexual harassment or discrimination.
Importantly, there is no application charge and visa holders will have the right to work in Australia while they pursue any claims.
We proposed these reforms in our 2023 Breaking the Silence report (with Sanmati Verma from the Human Rights Law Centre) and participated in a co-design process with the Department of Home Affairs.
Implementing our recommendation, to apply for the visa in the pilot, a migrant must obtain formal certification. This includes evidence they have experienced workplace exploitation and they are committed to seeking redress.
But significantly, it’s not just the government who can provide this certification. Other third parties that migrants trust – including community-based legal services, trade unions or university legal services – can also play this role.
This is critical because many migrants would never report directly to government – either because they fear the government of their home country or are simply terrified of jeopardising their precious foothold in Australia. Using third-party certifiers means migrants can be highly confident of qualifying for the visa before an application is lodged.
For affected migrants, this transforms the accessibility of justice.
For example, a sponsored worker who was injured at work but too afraid to take action could access a short-term visa to pursue workers compensation before returning home.
Or an exploited backpacker who was about to leave Australia but didn’t want to report sexual harassment during their fruit-picking job could stay for an additional six months to hold their employer to account.
The Department of Home Affairs is now also prohibited from cancelling the visas of some migrants who have breached their work conditions, as long as they’ve obtained a similar labour claim certification.
For example, an underpaid international student who had worked more than 48 hours a fortnight in breach of their visa – possibly to make ends meet on unlawfully low wages – could now bring a claim against their employer, knowing their visa wouldn’t be cancelled because they’d worked too many hours.
By permitting workers to obtain certification from trusted third parties, the pilot visa program provides choice and agency in how they assert their labour rights. This is without precedent anywhere else in the world.
Unlike a scheme which depends on government certification of claims alone, this pilot encourages migrants to join unions and equips unions with a new tool to organise and represent them.
Not only will this embolden exploited workers to come forward, it will also expand the universe of labour law enforcement beyond the Fair Work Ombudsman to union and community lawyers. This sets the new global best practice for countries seeking to realise migrant workers’ access to justice and business’ accountability for labour exploitation.