“Modern slavery: Everywhere in (supply) chains”, 14 Mar 2015

…Sony Sulekha…[is] one of the plaintiffs in the largest human-trafficking case ever brought in America. He and around 500 other Indians had been recruited…to work in the Signal International shipyard…[T]hey laboured in inhumane conditions…Last month a jury awarded Mr Sulekha and four others $14m in damages…Signal says it will appeal…Estimates of the number of workers trapped in modern slavery are…sketchy. The…ILO…puts the global total at around 21m…Around half are thought to be in India…Bonded labour is also common in…China, Pakistan, Russia and Uzbekistan—and rife in Thailand’s seafood industry…A recent investigation by…an NGO…found that a quarter of all workers in Malaysia’s electronics industry were in forced labour…America made human trafficking illegal in 2000…Australia and Britain have recently passed light-touch laws…requiring transparency in supply chains…Ending bonded labour will require economic as well as legal measures…[also refers to Apple]