Dun & Bradstreet has made available the Human Trafficking Risk (HTR) index, designed to give companies a clear view of their global supply chain and corporate linkages, helping to gain transparency into the multiple layers of vendors used throughout the procurement process.
Companies may unknowingly be using forced labor in their procurement of commodities since, to date, a view into the full chain of vendors and suppliers has been difficult to attain. Dun & Bradstreet's HTR index uses proprietary data from its global database of 250 million business records, along with public data from the U.S. Department of State1 and the U.S. Department of Labor2, to analyze conditions surrounding areas where goods are produced and assign a score to that region and commodity.Dun & Bradstreet creates an index of those scores to assess a company's risk of being associated with goods and services potentially tied to human trafficking.
The International Labour Organization estimates there are over 19 million victims of exploitive forced labor worldwide. The most common form of human trafficking is forced labor in domestic work, agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.
Recent regulations - including the US Federal Acquisition Regulations guidelines around Human Trafficking (2015); Modern Slavery Act (United Kingdom, 2015); and Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 (2016) - have instilled mandatory audits and reporting of supply chains including fines.
"Companies want to be responsible corporate citizens, but we hear time and again that they are underprepared and overwhelmed to meet supply chain due diligence requirements," said Greg Iaquinto, Leader in Global Supply & Risk Solutions, Dun & Bradstreet. "The rising importance of responsible business practices has added to the challenges faced by procurement and supply chain professionals who are eager for a multi-perspective view into their supply chains."
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