Software Fights Modern Slave Labor

[From article]
Today, the tools to combat slavery have become decidedly more high-tech (and nonviolent). Made in a Free World in San Francisco, for example, has developed software that helps companies determine whether products they sell or make depend on global slave labor.
But even the most advanced algorithms can’t replace the one thing the United States needed more than guns and cannons to win the conflict 150 years ago: the will to eliminate it.
According to the International Labor Organization, at least 20 million people across the world are being forced to work for no pay. These workers are either directly or indirectly producing the goods sold by major corporations and small businesses alike, including those in the United States.
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In a global economy, tracing who does what (and with what, and where) poses a complex challenge, since supply chains are long and convoluted, with companies relying on layers of suppliers who contract work out to smaller suppliers and so on.
“At the level of global brands, forced labor and human trafficking can often be hidden from view, the result of complex and frequently outsourced recruitment and hiring practices,” according to a United Nations report.
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Last year, the Associated Press reported on an island off the coast of Indonesia where thousands of enslaved fishermen caught seafood sold by U.S. supermarkets like Walmart and Kroger.
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Justin Dillon helped create an algorithm that allows consumers to determine the probability that companies were using slave labor, especially in raw material production, to make 400 popular products like beds, cars and cell phones.
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But Dillon realized that consumers were just one half the equation. To create real change, Made in a Free World needed to help companies — not just shame them — to rid slave labor from supply chains.
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Companies can enter data into the system and the software — which costs $250 a year for small companies, $25,000 for larger firms — which then spits out probabilities and risks for slave labor, based on information like a country’s government, human rights record, labor issues, and trade and migration flows.
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Over the past five years, the movement to clean up corporate supply chains has gained much momentum. In 2010, California passed a law requiring large manufacturers and retailers doing business in the state to disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from supply chains. The federal Dodd-Frank Act requires companies to state whether they use conflict minerals

[. . .] from the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa.
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Many companies would simply rather not know whether they use slave labor, he said.
“Every Western executive would agree with that ... until you ask them what they would be willing to pay to find out whether they're already supporting it. What are they supposed to do with the information once they find out? Action costs even more money. And are their competitors going to be compelled to take similar costly action?”
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Large companies mostly react to problems instead of getting ahead of them. And companies generally are not willing to spend money on issues unless absolutely necessary and competitors do the same.
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And yet, ethical consumers and companies will want to start somewhere. Made in a Free World’s true value, at least for now, is to provide a means to a worthwhile end. The technology is there — all we need is the will to use it.

http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Tech-Helps-to-Spot-Modern-Day-Slave-Labor.html

Tech Helps to Spot Modern-Day Slave Labor
'Made in a Free World' has developed software that helps companies determine whether products they sell or make depend on global slave labor.
BY THOMAS LEE

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

FEBRUARY 2, 2016