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Understanding the Role of AI in Combating Forced Labor in Supply Chains

September 20, 2024

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Introduction

In the pursuit to end modern-day slavery, Hope for Justice works with multinationals to uncover forced labor hidden within their supply chains. By strategically harnessing AI technology that revolutionizes supply chain transparency, the NGO ensures unethical practices are swiftly identified and eradicated.

This article looks at the NGO’s mission, the limitations of traditional methods in achieving true supply chain visibility, and how their partnership with Exiger leverages AI to gain the crucial insights needed to cleanse supply chains of modern-day slavery.

Who Are Hope for Justice and the Slave-Free Alliance?

For over 16 years, Hope for Justice has led the charge against modern-day slavery. Alongside the Slave-Free Alliance — a division set up in 2018 — their mission is to prevent exploitation, rescue victims, and restore ethical business practices by eliminating forced labor. Operating across seven countries, Hope for Justice helps multinational corporations cleanse their supply chains of unethical practices, ensuring global ethical standards.

In today’s stringent regulatory landscape, companies face constant compliance and reputational risks regarding forced labor. International laws necessitate scrutiny of supply chains, and many corporations struggle to comply, often facing repuational challenges due to discrepancies between their principles and operational realities.

Hope for Justice plays a key role by conducting in-depth gap analyses to identify and address vulnerabilities within these supply chains. However, manual methods and research employed by the NGO fell short of providing the necessary depth of insight needed to monitor complex supply chains effectively.

“What we have realized is that we need to have a technology component that would give us visibility beyond that which we can see ourselves. And that’s where Exiger comes in,” says Hope for Justice CEO and co-founder Tim Nelson.

Leveraging AI and NGO Expertise for Real Change

After evaluating over 400 solutions, Hope for Justice selected Exiger as their partner. Nelson highlights that Exiger’s supply chain visibility platform, 1Exiger, delivered the comprehensive insights it needed – something other solutions lacked. This was vital in empowering Hope for Justice to provide robust guidance and solutions for a complex problem like modern slavery.

Brandon Daniels, CEO of Exiger, remembers a pivotal incident where Exiger’s AI revealed for a customer forced labor links that traditional screenings of a particular vendor missed.

“One of the things that came up about that vendor is that their existing director, essentially their CEO, had at that same time owned another company,” Daniels says. “And that company was at that moment in time being indicted for trafficking 39 Vietnamese immigrants into the UK. And so they were able to stop that contract from happening.”

“Just by utilizing the (Exiger) platform and onboarding them into the system and getting a comprehensive AI-driven level of due diligence, they were able to stop forced labor,” Daniels noted. “That case study for that customer led me to want to work with Hope for Justice to stamp this problem out at the root.”

By integrating Exiger’s advanced AI technology with NGO expertise, the partnership helps facilitate investigations and risk remediation efforts. Exiger’s platform — equipped with the largest forced-labor dataset in the world — allows businesses to map supply chains for visibility into third-party relationships, suppliers, and item-level details, identifying forced labor risks and enabling informed, ethical decisions

“One of the things that came up about that vendor is that their existing director, essentially their CEO, had at that same time owned another company. And that company was at that moment in time being indicted for trafficking 39 Vietnamese immigrants into the UK.”

Brandon Daniels

CEO, Exiger

Enabling Multi-Tier Supply Chain Visibility with Exiger

A key feature of Exiger’s AI technology is multi-tier supply chain visibility, enabling companies to trace components like aluminum or critical minerals from their source to the final product. The transparency delivered through Exiger’s platform analyzes supply chain tiers all the way to the hole-in-the-ground origin of materials. This level of clarity about item-level provenance is essential for informed decision-making and building resilience.

Tantalum, a metal used in the production of electronic components, has been flagged by Exiger’s platform for possible sourcing risks. As Daniels notes, “We can pinpoint not just where it’s coming from, but which industries are affected, what are the core products.” This intelligence is crucial in uncovering the origins of tantalum from areas with significant child labor concerns, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Brazil. By identifying its applications in electronics and medical implants, Exiger’s AI empowers stakeholders to make informed actions against unethical supply chain practices.

Exiger’s Proactive Intelligence capabilities also assess macro-dynamics in supply chains to foresee potential shortages, helping industries prevent disruptions. It also analyzes supplier resilience, allowing stakeholders to evaluate suppliers’ capacities and financial health, among other third-party and supply chain risks. These features equip Hope for Justice — and Exiger customers — with the necessary tools to effectively combat modern slavery, leveraging powerful AI to drive significant change.

Watch the SupplyChainBrain interview (below) with Tim Nelson and Brandon Daniels to learn more about the partnership between Exiger and Hope for Justice — and how it underscores the transformative role of AI in ensuring a future free from modern slavery.