Tackling Modern Slavery in Malaysian Medical Gloves Factories Using a Whole-Systems Approach to the Supply Chain

该项目将确定和实施机制，以防止和补救马来西亚医用手套行业在招聘和雇用工人方面的现代奴隶制，在COVID-19大流行期间，对手套的需求增加了一倍以上，而对工人权利的地方性侵犯则继续存在或变得更糟。2019年，马来西亚是全球三分之二的手套供应来源，也是英国国民健康服务（NHS）手套的主要来源。自疫情爆发以来，英格兰已提供超过18亿只手套用于卫生和社会护理。制造业依赖于手套厂的移徙工人，最近的媒体报道强调了现代奴隶制的条件，包括支付高额招聘费导致债役、没收护照和限制行动或结社。英国NHS供应链是全球最大的手套采购商，负责采购英格兰和威尔士80%的医疗用品。最近于2020年3月发布的英国政府现代奴隶制声明包括承诺在手套行业开展试点工作，沿着手套生产压力的增加，这意味着现在是时候进行分析并确定英国和国际供应链中可以利用的变化，并了解这种变化的驱动因素和障碍。这项研究将采用一个整体-系统方法，以了解在大流行期间影响马来西亚手套行业工人和现代奴隶制的结构和流程。通过与供应链各层参与者的访谈，（工人、工厂管理层、供应商、采购商和政策制定者），我们的目标是确定变革的途径，并在整个供应链中进行沟通，以便例如采购政策能够对全球供应链问题的现实敏感，包括提供适当的后勤支持、商业和合同条款，和定价，以实现所需的变化，并纳入机制，使真实的和持续的工人的声音和代表。我们了解和解决马来西亚医用手套工厂现代奴隶制的方法涉及使用整个供应链方法，以避免出现个别子系统优化但整个供应链仍处于次优状态的情况。通过利益相关者参与研讨会，报告和政策简报，该项目将对英国和马来西亚的采购和供应链组织产生政策影响和改变，并将建立联系英国的采购治理和做法与马来西亚供应链上游发生的劳工剥削之间的关系。最重要的是，它将为马来西亚手套行业的现代奴隶制受害者和幸存者提供可证明的成果，包括教育和偿还招聘费用，并将为政策制定者和NHS采购提供关于激励和实施改进的建议。该项目将由一个跨学科团队执行，该团队已经处于提高认识和解决手套供应链中这些问题的最前沿，以确保迅速和可持续的积极成果。

This project will identify and implement mechanisms to prevent and remediate modern slavery in the recruitment and employment of workers in the medical gloves sector in Malaysia, where demand for gloves has more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst endemic abuse of worker rights has either continued or become worse. In 2019 Malaysia was the source of two-thirds of gloves supplied to the world by volume, and also the main source of gloves to the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Over 1.8 billion gloves have been provided for use in health and social care in England since the start of the pandemic. Manufacturing is reliant on migrant labour in glove factories, where recent media reports highlight conditions of modern slavery, including payment of high recruitment fees leading to debt bondage, confiscation of passports, and restrictions on movement or association. The UK NHS Supply Chain is the single largest purchaser of gloves in the world, responsible for procuring up to 80% of medical goods in England and Wales. The recent UK Government Modern Slavery Statement in March 2020 included a commitment to pilot work in the gloves sector which, along with increasing pressure on the production of gloves, means it is timely to pick up analysis and identify where in UK and international supply chains change can be leveraged, and understand the drivers and barriers to such change.The research will employ a whole-systems approach to understand structures and processes affecting workers and modern slavery in the Malaysian gloves sector during the pandemic. Through interviews with actors at all tiers in the supply chain (workers, factory management, suppliers, purchasers, and policy makers), we aim to identify pathways of change and communicate these throughout the supply chain so that, for example, procurement policy can be made sensitive to the realities of global supply chain issues, including providing appropriate logistical support, commercial and contractual terms, and pricing to enable the changes needed, and incorporating mechanisms to enable real and sustained worker voice and representation. Our approach to understanding and tackling modern slavery in Malaysian medical gloves factories involves the use of a whole supply chain approach to avoid a situation where individual subsystems are optimised but the whole supply chain remains sub-optimal.Through stakeholder engagement workshops, reports and policy briefs, the project will generate policy influence and change focused on UK procurement and supply chain organisations in the UK and Malaysia and will build the connection between procurement governance and practices in the UK and the occurrence of labour exploitation at the upstream end of the supply chain in Malaysia. Most importantly, it will support demonstrable outcomes for the victims and survivors of modern slavery in the Malaysian gloves sector, including education and the reimbursement of recruitment fees, and will produce recommendations for policy-makers and NHS procurement on incentivising and implementing improvement. The project will be executed by an interdisciplinary team already at the forefront of raising awareness and tackling these issues in the gloves supply chain, in order to ensure swift and sustainable positive outcomes.