An event in the margins of the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly
to launch the Issue Brief on “Preventing Trafficking in Persons: The Role of Public Procurement”
by the Inter-Agency Coordination Group Against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT)

 

On Sep­tem­ber 27, 2021, ICAT orga­nized an inter­na­tion­al sem­i­nar as a kick-off meet­ing to imple­ment har­mo­nized bid­ding rules and pro­cure­ment poli­cies with­in inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions and mem­ber states. Keynote speak­ers, rep­re­sent­ing major inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions and mem­ber states, demon­strat­ed strong momen­tum for intro­duc­ing laws to reduce the demand for human traf­fick­ing through pub­lic pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tion, to set an exam­ple for the pri­vate sector.

Inter­na­tion­al and nation­al nor­ma­tive and pol­i­cy frame­works rec­og­nize the duty of gov­ern­ments to under­take due dili­gence to pro­tect peo­ple against human rights vio­la­tions, includ­ing traf­fick­ing in per­sons, in their pro­cure­ment processes.

“Human rights due dili­gence” in sup­ply chains refers to process­es to iden­ti­fy, pre­vent, mit­i­gate and rem­e­dy human rights vio­la­tions asso­ci­at­ed with com­mer­cial activ­i­ties and busi­ness part­ner­ships, includ­ing procurement.

Traf­fick­ing in per­sons and child labour are amongst the human rights risks that can be addressed in the pro­cure­ment process.

INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORKS FOR STATES

The most sweep­ing oblig­a­tion to address the demand aspect of traf­fick­ing for forced labour is found in Arti­cle 9(5) of the Pro­to­col to Pre­vent, Sup­press and Pun­ish Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons, Espe­cial­ly Women and Chil­dren (Paler­mo Pro­to­col), sup­ple­ment­ing the Unit­ed Nations Con­ven­tion against Transna­tion­al Orga­nized Crime. Arti­cle 9(5) requires parties1 to the Con­ven­tion to take steps to “dis­cour­age the demand that fos­ters all forms of exploita­tion that lead to trafficking.”

Some coun­tries have adopt­ed laws on pro­cure­ment, while oth­ers have adopt­ed mea­sures only on spe­cif­ic high-risk indus­tries, for exam­ple cot­ton har­vest­ing. A com­pi­la­tion of these nation­al approach­es can be found in the OSCE Com­pendi­um of rel­e­vant ref­er­ence mate­ri­als and resources on eth­i­cal sourc­ing and pre­ven­tion of traf­fick­ing in human beings for labour exploita­tion in sup­ply chains.xxi The doc­u­ment lists 130 ini­tia­tives of 35 dif­fer­ent States, such as laws, poli­cies, nation­al action plans, and guide­lines devel­oped by nation­al author­i­ties to address forced labour and human traf­fick­ing in sup­ply chains.

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