Skip to content
Member Login
Symposium

Ending Human Trafficking in the 21st Century Symposium

Ending Human Trafficking in the 21st Century Symposium
Stringer/REUTERS

Event date



The Ending Human Trafficking in the Twenty-First Century Symposium reflects on efforts to combat human trafficking over the past two decades and explores new tools to accelerate progress at home and abroad. The full agenda is available here. 

This symposium is cosponsored with the Women and Foreign Policy Program.

Keynote Session With Guy Ryder

Guy Ryder will discuss the economic cost of forced labor and highlight the ways in which governments and the private sector can join forces to combat human trafficking.

Speaker

  • Guy Ryder
    Director General, International Labor Organization

Presider

Transcript

KRISTOF: Thank you very much. I’m Nicolas Kristof from the New York Times. I’m privileged today to engage in conversation with Guy Ryder, the director-general of the International Labour Organization, who joins us from the apparently somewhat empty ILO headquarters in Geneva. Welcome, Mr. Ryder.

RYDER: Thank you very much, Nick. Thanks.

KRISTOF: I also just want to congratulate the Council on engaging with this issue and all of you to join this symposium. And before we started, we were just talking about the degree to which the international relations agenda has expanded over the years. And, you know, when I joined the Council, the idea was we would sit around and talk about missiles and maybe trade and things like this. And now there’s, I think, a much broader perception of what actually belongs on that agenda. And the recent Council report on trafficking is a reflection of that and this symposium is a reflection of that. So, Guy, maybe we can start by, can you can you tell us a little bit the ILO has been engaged in fighting forced labor for many years. So tell us a little bit about the scale and challenge of forced labor...

Session II: The Private Sector—Global Supply Chains and Labor Trafficking

Panelists will discuss how labor trafficking in global supply chains intersects with people’s daily lives—from the products they buy and the food they consume to the clothes they wear. It will also highlight the structural factors—including poverty, inequality, conflict, and migration—that exacerbate the risks of labor trafficking, with a focus on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speakers

  • Anita Ramasastry
    Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law, and Director, Sustainable International Development Graduate Program, University of Washington School of Law; Vice Chair, UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights
  • Brent Wilton
    Principal, Tuhana Business and Human Rights; Former Global Director, Workplace Rights and Human Rights, The Coca-​Cola Company

Presider

  • Rana Foroohar
    Global Business Columnist and Associate Editor, Financial Times; CFR Member

Transcript

FOROOHAR: Okay, thanks so much Kayla. I’d like to welcome everyone to this Council on Foreign Relations meeting on the Private Sector, Global Supply Chains, and Labor Trafficking. This is actually the second session in a symposium on Ending Human Trafficking in the 21st Century. I’m Rana Foroohar, I’m an associate editor at The Financial Times, global economic analyst for CNN, and a member of the Council. I’m very pleased to be presiding over the session today. So as usual, we’re going to have about a half an hour to discuss, myself and two panelists, that I’ll introduce in just a moment. And then we’re going to have about thirty minutes for member Q&A, and we’ll queue you up and announce that when it’s time.

So let me start by welcoming our two panelists. First, Anita Ramasastry, who is the Henry M. Jackson endowed professor of law and the director of sustainable international development graduate program at the University of Washington law school. She’s also a member of the UN Working Group on business and human rights. Welcome, Anita. And Brent Wilton, is also with us. He’s a principal at Tuhana Business and Human Rights and a former global director...