Response to the Secretary General’s Thematic Report on “OSCE’s Efforts to Prevent Labor Exploitation in Supply Chains”
As delivered by Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Elisabeth Rosenstock-Siller
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
April 29, 2021
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The United States greatly appreciates your report, Secretary General Schmid, on “OSCE’s Efforts to Prevent Labor Exploitation in its Supply Chains.” We commend the OSCE as a leader among International Organizations in addressing this complex problem. From implementing policy revisions, to conducting training and research, the OSCE has taken on this complex issue in a serious and strategic way. As the work is on-going, the United States pledged funding for the extrabudgetary program designed by the Office of the Special Representative/Coordinator for Combatting Trafficking in Human Being on supply chains.
As the Secretary General noted, given the scale of the problem of labor exploitation in supply chains, we all have a responsibility to combat it. The U.S. government and civil society takes very seriously efforts combating labor exploitation in supply chains both at home and abroad.
The Department of State, in cooperation with the NGO Verité, developed the Responsible Sourcing Tool to assist U.S. Federal contractors, procurement officials, and companies to better identify, prevent, and address the risks of human trafficking in their global supply chains.
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Labor produced an App, “Comply Chain: Business Tools for Labor Compliance in Global Supply Chains,” for companies and industry groups seeking to develop robust social compliance systems for their global production, and provides a step-by-step guide on critical elements of social compliance. We will continue to highlight and amplify risks of supply chain links to entities that engage in human rights abuses, as we did when the Department of Labor launched a webpage dedicated to compiling information related to state-sponsored forced labor in Xinjiang.
This is an issue we must all address. Again, we commend the OSCE for its leadership in examining its supply chains, and call on participating States to do the work at home, and together, to combat labor exploitation.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
###
