Ho Chi Minh City - On 07 November 2019, IOM conducted a one-day training for adidas business partners on “Building Business Capacity to Address Modern Slavery in Operations and Supply Chains” in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. 

The purpose of the training is to increase the understanding among adidas’ business partners on how they can take actions to end modern slavery in their operations and supply chains through ethical recruitment and employment practices. Twenty-five representatives from adidas’ licensees and licensee first-tier suppliers in Viet Nam participated in the training.

The training builds participants’ knowledge on key concepts and risks of modern slavery and forced labour and addresses why it matters for adidas and its business partners to end modern slavery and how to take action. The training is aligned with adidas’ Workplace Standards, which reflects adidas’ commitment to enhance human rights and workers’ employment rights within their supply chains.

The training succeeded to give participants a clearer understanding of adidas’ Workplace Standards and acted as a platform to exchange common challenges, solutions and best practices to ensure compliance with adidas Workplace Standards. Knowledge of the management system approach and root cause analysis was also provided to the participants to support action planning.

"Providing business partners with the guidance to identify and remedy potential modern slavery risks and influencing ethical employment practices is a key goal of our modern slavery outreach program strategy. Our partnership with IOM allows us to leverage their technical expertise and local knowledge and ensures the delivery of our program goals." - said Aditi Wanchoo, Senior Manager, Social & Environmental Affairs, adidas.

"Effective and sustainable solutions to tackling modern slavery are only possible when all actors along the supply chain work together. Though its tailor-made training programme IOM seeks to support businesses achieve greater compliance with international standards on ethical recruitment and management of migrant workers. Training for adidas’ business partners equipped them with necessary knowledge and practical tools to strengthen management systems and embed ethical recruitment practices in business conduct." - Maximillian Pottler, Project Manager, IOM CREST Project Manager.

Following the training, participants will develop an individual company action plan to ensure compliance with adidas requirements, specifically on potential forced labour and child labour risks.

The training was delivered by IOM under the partnership project with leading global sportswear company adidas, which aims to contribute to the elimination of unethical recruitment and exploitative labour practices. The partnership project, which kicked off its activities in early 2019, aims to ensure that the human and labour rights of migrant workers are upheld in adidas’ supply chain, especially in high risk migrant corridors.