Malaysian palm oil giant IOI Group just set a new standard in an industry notorious for worker exploitation.
IOI Group announced it would no longer charge recruitment fees to its workers, respect Freedom of Association, and strive towards paying a living wage. It’s a big win in our fight against conflict palm oil practices that exploit workers, displace indigenous communities, and raze invaluable rainforest.
But it’s not enough unless other big palm oil players like Felda follow suit. For too long, Felda has been endorsing modern day slave practices in its supply chain. And Procter & Gamble, one of its biggest customers, is letting it happen.
That’s why IOI’s announcement is a perfect opportunity to push for Felda to make its own commitment to end labor abuses. And if it doesn’t? Procter & Gamble has the responsibility to find a palm oil supplier that isn’t complicit with human rights violations.
Tell Procter & Gamble to ensure Felda eradicates modern day slavery from its supply chain.
For years, Felda has dealt in human trafficking of palm oil plantation workers, confiscating almost 30,000 passports and working with labor contractors that charge enormous fees to trafficked foreign workers.
For these trafficked plantation workers, Felda’s palm oil policy is a matter of life and death. In 2015, Thai and Malaysian police found nearly 150 bodies of people thought to have died in human traffickers’ camps at the border.
IOI Group’s new commitment to confronting human rights violations in its supply chain sets a new standard that palm oil competitors like Felda need to meet. And P&G has the power to hold Felda to this new standard -- or find new palm oil suppliers that will. That’s why we’re coming together to call on P&G to hold Felda accountable to a new policy on employment and migrant labor.
Tell Procter & Gamble to stop doing business with Felda unless the palm oil giant ends human trafficking in its supply chain.
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Triple Pundit. 1 November 2017.