An estimated 1.6 million Nepalis currently work abroad to better their lives and that of their families. Over the years, global media outlets and human rights groups have highlighted the mistreatment and abuse of migrants seeking overseas work, yet each day thousands of would-be migrants start the journey toward foreign employment.

In September 2015, Humanity United, the US Embassy in Nepal, and the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (JTIP) hosted TechCamp Nepal — a the three-day event in Kathmandu created to pursue tech solutions that reduce exploitation and strengthen protection for Nepali workers. To better understand context and challenges, HU also hosted a weeklong Migration Learning Tour in three districts in Nepal immediately preceding TechCamp.

The Migration Learning Tour and TechCamp Nepal brought together a range of relevant and interested stakeholders including local and international technology experts, former migrant workers, businesses and entrepreneurs, civil society groups and government representatives from the US, Nepal and Qatar.

Among the ideas generated, the solutions selected for development and implementation address two key challenges for Nepali migrants — vulnerabilities caused by recruitment fees and barriers to resolving worker grievances. They are:

• F1Soft Group and its subsidiary eSewa will pilot migration payments through a mobile money service, which aims to bring a more transparent market alternative to the current system that relies on all-cash transactions.
• World Education will build a web and mobile application featuring financial literacy and management tools and safe migration modules. Workers will be able to use both as they prepare to migrate in Nepal and upon arrival in destination countries.
• Caravan Studios & CH2M will pioneer a mobile-phone based tool in multiple languages that will allow workers to provide anonymous feedback on living and working conditions in destination countries.

These new tech solutions will be piloted in 2016 and deployed for use in 2017.

The International Labour Organization estimates that 21 million people around the world are victims of forced labor, and of these people 14.2 million are victims of forced labor in private economic activities. Many of the goods we consume today are produced with forced labor, which make their way into the global economy through complex and opaque supply chains, changing hands many times along the way. Corporations possess significant purchasing power, and we believe they can play an important role in eliminating forced labor from their supply chains.

Almost 21 million people are victims of forced labor around the world. Forced labor in the private economy generates $150 billion in illegal profits every year.
Source: International Labour Organization: www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm

In 2015, Humanity United announced the expansion of KnowTheChain, a project originally focused on documenting corporate compliance with the California Supply Chain Transparency Act, to a broader focus as a resource for companies and investors to better understand and address forced labor abuses within their supply chains. With this new charge, KnowTheChain will begin publishing sector-level benchmarking reports comparing corporate policies and practices to address these issues. Benchmarks can play a powerful role in encouraging companies to uphold labor standards and protect workers’ rights. But more importantly, they give companies and investors the information necessary to understand performance and examples of good practice. In 2016, KnowTheChain will publish benchmarks across three sectors: information & communication technology, apparel & footwear, and food & beverage.

Humanity United’s policy team, coordinating closely with the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), has worked for years to ensure that the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report remains an accurate and powerful diplomatic tool that can effectively persuade nations to combat human trafficking within their borders. 2015 proved to be a particularly challenging year, as the TIP report’s rankings were widely criticized and became a factor in the passage of important trade legislation.

In February 2015 — after testimony by David Abramowitz, Managing Director at HU, and Shawna Bader Blau, Executive Director of Solidarity Center before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey successfully included a provision in a trade bill that provided no fast track consideration of any trade agreement that had a country on “tier 3” of the State Department’s TIP report, the lowest ranking. This was the first time a human rights provision of this nature was included in trade legislation and may have contributed to the upgrade of Malaysia from tier 3 in the 2015 TIP report. Many viewed this upgrade as unwarranted given Malaysia’s record of forced labor in electronics production and recent revelations about the mass graves of victims of human trafficking on Malaysian soil. After the publication of the report, HU’s policy team worked intensively to raise awareness of the upgrade in the media and in Congress. These efforts contributed to a highly critical hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary Kerry directly raising human trafficking issues with the Prime Minister of Malaysia and a commitment to a future high-level diplomatic campaign to ensure that countries were on notice in advance of what they had to achieve to be upgraded. The TPP itself contained strong side agreements or “consistency plans” for Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei, all countries with current or past human trafficking challenges. HU is committed to continuing to press the United States and other governments to be both honest and action oriented in the effort to combat human trafficking.

Found in everyday household items, palm oil is the world’s most popular vegetable oil, accounting for more than 30% of global vegetable oil consumption. Since 1990, global demand for cheaply produced palm oil has quintupled, and demand is projected to double by 2030. As consumption grows, there is increased documentation of forced and child labor as well as hazardous working conditions in palm oil plantations. HU has worked to document labor abuses, and we have pressed companies who procure palm oil to take steps to address labor exploitation in their supply chains. In 2014, we convened an unprecedented and diverse alliance of international human rights and environmental organizations to develop a guide for companies that source, trade or produce palm oil to embrace their responsibility to ensure the rights of palm oil workers are respected.

In the spring of 2015, the alliance released the Free and Fair Labor in Palm Oil Production: Principles and Implementation Guidance to provide a normative standard for labor and working conditions on palm oil plantations and palm oil mills. The guide also outlines a set of practices to operationalize the outlined principles. The first of its kind, this guide represents a helpful tool for companies to understand the problem and invest in concrete solutions to improve the lives of millions of workers.

The humanitarian situation in South Sudan remained deadly in 2015, with the continuing civil war increasingly polarizing the country along ethnic and regional lines. Since the outbreak of violence, HU has focused on supporting peacemaking efforts in the region by urging international cooperation to achieve peace between the warring parties. In response to advocacy by a range of organizations, including HU, President Obama made South Sudan a key element in his trip to East Africa in 2015, and the United States worked closely with China to help support peace in the country. These efforts contributed to the successful conclusion of the August 2015 Peace Agreement between the warring parties, which included frameworks for relieving the suffering of the people of South Sudan, accountability for the crimes committed during the conflict and a mechanism to supervise the agreement’s implementation.

In addition to joining the international and regional pressure that helped achieve the Agreement, we are committed to continuing to work with our partners to ensure that the promise of the agreement is reached.

This includes working with partners on the ground to support local peacebuilding efforts. Engaging with the few local actors who still have the trust of the communities that are at risk of a wider conflict, we want to prevent local violence that could undermine the peace agreement and lead to wider conflict that can threaten the country as a whole.

Since 2007, Humanity United has invested more than $13 million in Liberia, supporting Liberian civil society organizations, INGO’s working in-country, and the Liberian government. Over that time, we have supported groups working on a wide range of issues, including access to justice, capacity building support for civil society, conflict early warning, economic development and natural resource management.

Partners like Building Markets have helped local businesses win more than 500 contracts worth $60 million to create thousands of jobs within the community and develop strong relationships with the government. HU’s partnership with Virgin Unite helped to launch the Branson Scholarship Program, an entrepreneurship training program that allowed for the creation of 250 new jobs and the promise of many more.

We worked closely with TrustAfrica to form and support a working group of several organization that came together to monitor Liberia’s natural resource concessions agreements. Since convening in 2013, the Concessions Working Group has become a strong, respected collaborative engaging corporations, communities and the government to better ensure accountability and voice in concessions agreements. HU has also supported the Early Warning Early Response Working Group in the creation of a community-based system for monitoring violence and preventing the escalation of conflict. The group now counts 35 members, with a sophisticated structure that reaches deep into each community in every part of the country.

After two protracted civil wars and the devastation of nearly two years spent combatting Ebola, Liberia has proven to be a resilient and intrepid country. We are proud to have supported Liberia’s future and we hope the programs and groups that our partners have put in place will continue to help the country advance on the path to peace and prosperity.