How FRDM And The Canadian Government Are Teaming Up To Fight Modern-Day Slavery

International Labor Organization estimates that 73 million children are exposed to dangerous and hazardous work that supports global supply chains

As conscious citizens around the world wake up to the problem of forced labor around the world, innovative companies and governments are looking for new ways to combat this scourge.

According to the Global Slavery Index, there are more than 40.3 million men, women, and children living in forced labor conditions around the world. In addition, the International Labor Organization estimates that 73 million children are exposed to dangerous and hazardous work that supports global supply chains. The pandemic has pushed more than 1.5 billion students out of school, which, combined with widespread job and income loss, will increase rates of child labor in the coming months and years. 

FRDM , a supply chain technology company, announced a partnership with the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) to combat forced labor and slavery around the world. FRDM will be assisting in CBSA’s efforts to block the importation of goods made with forced labor using an extensive database of manufacturers around the world, combined with sophisticated AI and ML technology, to identify high-risk shipments entering Canada's ports. 

I caught up with FRDM Founder Justin Dillon to find out more.

Justin Dillon, Founder and CEO of FRDM COPYRIGHT © RAINER HOSCH PHOTOGRAPHY

Afdhel Aziz: Justin, welcome. We’ve had the pleasure of covering the incredible work FRDM has done in this column before. How did this collaboration with the Canadian government come about?

Justin Dillon: Thanks as always, Afdhel. They reached out to us because they were looking for a technology solution to monitor and measure forced labor in supply chains. FRDM is a supply chain transparency technology that helps companies monitor and address human rights abuse throughout their supply chain. While working with a government is somewhat new for us, we’ve been seeing increased government engagement around the issue over the last year, so it was only a matter of time. 

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act just passed in the US Senate by unanimous and bipartisan content. Several countries including Canada have categorized China’s exploitation of minority Muslims in the northern territory of Xinjiang as genocide. The reach of this bill is broad assuming that goods manufactured in Xinjiang are made with forced labor unless proven otherwise. This affects the importation of everything from socks to solar panels. 85% of the world’s cotton comes from this region which ends up many of the products we all consume.

We’ve also seen the addition of human rights protections inside trade agreements like USMCA (United States Mexico Canada Agreement) formerly known as NAFTA. United States Customs and Border Patrol have detained over 967 shipments of products suspected to be made with forced labor which include items like rubber gloves, hair extensions, stevia, palm oil, fish, t-shirts, and more. Canada is putting together their own strategy which we are helping with by providing intelligence about every shipment that’s coming across the border. Constantly monitoring the biggest border in the world is a huge task that can’t be achieved relying only on audits and questionnaires. Box checking exercises alone won’t fix this. It’s still early days in our partnership supporting Canada with big data analytics and risk algorithms, but the potential is very exciting.

FRDM built its technology upon the management axiom of ‘what gets measured gets managed’.

Aziz: Thanks for sharing that context, Justin. What are some of the examples of success that this has lead to?

Dillon: The primary success we’ve seen centers around increasing visibility in supply chains. We built our technology upon the management axiom of ‘what gets measured gets managed’. Less than 15% of companies have zero visibility of their supply chain beyond their direct suppliers. That’s not a critique. The reality is companies have not been required to know, until now. There are also no governments I know of currently investing into this kind of visibility of their country’s imports. Most companies have no idea if they are sourcing from bad sub-suppliers, which according to USMCA, puts their shipments at risk of detainment.

This is why FRDM started working with researchers to map all known Xinjiang factories, along with each factory’s commercial relationships, which creates much greater visibility into the supply chains of our customers. We see this as measurement tool as a huge success because it gives companies a path forward to both comply with rules and protect their values. The savings reaped from exploitation are consumed deep in the supply chain, but the risks are always passed along to end sellers.

The mere interest in big data analytics tools to address human rights issues by any government is a huge success in my book. Our partnership with the Canadian government gives me great hope that governments can lead by example on this. If governments and businesses can leverage each other’s strengths then we will very likely see sustainable impact with supply chains built upon a bedrock of justice. No one seems to remember that several global brands took a stand against sourcing from the Xinjiang region and were summarily punished for it in China. Ultimately, success is dependent upon business and government working together.

Aziz: Do you hope that other governments follow this approach to help end forced labor?

Dillon: Of course. Government has some of the best technology ever created being used for national defense, so why not deploy great tech to defend those who have no protection. Passing legislation is one tool only government can  use. Trade enforcement is another (possibly a more exciting) tool because it impacts the entire global marketplace. Bad actor will always be around trying to exploit for gain, but they can only do so by accessing the marketplace. Government’s increased and intelligent intervention will make it much harder for them.

The market doesn’t care about our morals or values. It only cares about supply and demand. Scaling demand for transparent ethical supply chains is the most sustainable and scalable strategy that’s good for society, good for politicians, and good for business. As a citizen of the United States I’m encouraged to see how our government is making forced labor a key issue in its trade strategy. In some ways Canada is a little ahead of the United States because of their early interest in big data insights. My hope is that both governments will find more ways to work together to drive ethical supply chains. I can see the dots connecting in supply chains. The bad actors who benefit from forced labor are slowly being pushed out of the marketplace. It’s the beginning of a real movement in the marketplace.

You can learn more here: www.frdm.co/canada.