Human Rights Now, an international human rights NGO based in Tokyo, has published a report that investigates and analyzes alleged human rights violations and forced labor in Shimano’s supply chain, and it recommends the establishment of an import ban on products produced by forced labor in Japan based on lessons from this case and cases like it.
Download the report here.
Click here for the Japanese version.
Summary:
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented surge in global demand for bicycles, as more people used bicycles for transportation and recreational purposes. However, the global bicycle boom was overshadowed by serious human rights abuses against migrant workers in factories in global supply chains that manufacture bicycle parts, a situation with indicators of ‘modern slavery’.
This report examines the exploitation of migrant workers in global supply chains at three levels: (1) the companies directly linked to the violations, (2) the country in which violations occur, and (3) the country to which the products of the violations are sent, which make up parts 1, 2, and 3 of the report respectively. The report examines the circumstances at each level that facilitate labor rights violations, as well as the challenges at each level in preventing violations and addressing them after they occur, and the possibilities for reforms.
To make the discussion concrete, this report focuses on a detailed case study involving labor violations against Nepalese and Bangladeshi migrant workers by a supplier factory in Malaysia run by Kwang Li Industry (KLI), with the products being sent to the transnational Japanese bicycle company Shimano.
The basic conclusion of the report is that countries of import, like Japan, can play a particularly critical role in preventing and addressing labor rights violations in global supply chains, as they have the capacity, international and market influence, potential political will, and space for legal reform to pressure supplier companies and their home countries (KLI and Malaysia in this case) to ensure that supply chains are free of forced labor and labor rights violations.
*This report is a revised version dated 18 October 2024.