8 December 2020

Australia’s leading supermarkets, retail stores and mining companies have uncovered hundreds of cases of modern slavery throughout supply chains, severing ties with third-party contractors, negotiating pay increases and forcing the return of confiscated passports to migrant workers.

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Woolworths Group, which includes its supermarkets, Big W and Dan Murphy's, revealed it had confronted six suppliers from Malaysia, where workers from Myanmar were reimbursed thousands of dollars each in recruitment fees.

The company said it was watching for increased human rights risks relating to climate change, cotton sourced from China and the management of COVID-19.

It also found its seafood, cocoa and nuts suppliers in Bolivia, Ivory Coast and Vietnam had exposed its companies to extreme risks of forced labour.

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It found five non-food categories had "extreme risks of forced labour" and following allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang province in China, it had started tracing its garment supply chain there.

"We have no direct suppliers producing goods in Xinjiang and are conducting further due diligence on cotton sourced as a raw material," it said.

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Wesfarmers, whose stores include Bunnings, Kmart, Target and Officeworks, identified more than 340 "critical breaches" across 105 suppliers in the 2020 financial year.

Its audit found the biggest risk in its Australian workforce, usually through third parties, was migrant labour exploitation through cleaning contractors.

"There is both a moral and a business case for the steps we are taking to identify, report, address and ultimately eliminate any exploitation of vulnerable people with whom we may be involved, directly or indirectly, overseas or at home," Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney said.

The report found Wesfarmers' supply chains risked exposure to human trafficking through apparel purchasing in Cambodia, as well excessive overtime in Bangladesh and Vietnam. Four critical breaches related to three suppliers that were "exited" immediately and no further supply orders were placed at the remaining 17 suppliers with 40 critical breaches.