FLEX is pleased to announce our new Chief Executive is Lucila Granada, who starts her role with us this week. Lucila looks forward to leading FLEX to tackle human trafficking for labour exploitation, focusing on labour rights for all, and protections and empowerment for those at risk of, or experiencing, abuse and exploitation. 

Today, FLEX publishes two policy briefings on cocoa and garment supply chains respectively, finding workplace abuse, poverty and gender-based discrimination and more. The findings in these briefings come from a research project led by the University of Liverpool and funded by the British Academy with the Department for International Development. It sought to assess how transparency in supply chains for chocolate and clothes can help to protect human rights, including children’s rights, and the wellbeing of workers in low and middle-income countries.

Today FLEX publishes a new report entitled 'The risks of exploitation in temporary migration programmes: A FLEX response to the 2018 Immigration White Paper', along with a complementary policy briefing. These papers look in-depth at the three temporary migration programmes proposed in the 2018 Immigration White Paper, drawing on international and historical examples to show why these schemes pose a risk of labour abuse and exploitation. They provide constructive recommendations for Government on how to protect post-Brexit Britain from increased human trafficking for labour exploitation.

We believe the experts on labour abuse or exploitation are those with lived experience of the issues. This blog explains why we favour research approaches which recognise at-risk and affected workers as partners in research, rather than subjects, and how this methodology is upturning traditional power imbalances.