Article 13: Freedom of movement and residence; the right to leave and return to a country
Necessary
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Article 13's core content, passports, exit visas and border control, is decided by governments, not companies. But a real corporate lever sits underneath it. Migrant workers in agriculture, seafood, apparel, electronics, hospitality and construction are routinely charged illegal recruitment fees and handed debt they cannot repay. Employers hold their passports, which strips them of the practical freedom to leave a job or a country even though the law says they may. Buyer companies have adopted supplier-code language banning worker-paid fees. They include Ford, General Motors, Hormel and Marriott, along with Michael Kors, Costco and Hanesbrands. Costco specifically committed to eliminating forced Uzbek cotton labor from its supply chain. Independent monitoring, however, shows most employers still are not paying the full cost of ethical recruitment, so the policies exist well ahead of the practice. The remaining gap is one of enforcement, which is a government and buyer-diligence problem more than a lobbying one.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Ending the debt bondage created by worker-paid recruitment fees, contract substitution and passport confiscation requires a change in hiring practices. That change rests with employers, labor brokers and the buyer companies in agriculture, apparel, electronics, hospitality and manufacturing. Government reform of visa sponsorship systems (such as the Gulf kafala model) and labor-law enforcement must move at the same time, so corporate conduct is necessary but not sufficient on its own.
We ran adversarial searches for corporate political lobbying that blocks migrant-worker mobility protections or kafala-style sponsorship reform and found no documented campaign of that kind; the obstacles that remain are weak enforcement and government sponsorship rules, not corporate lobbying.
2 and 0, higher of the two, gives Necessary
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Shareholder Campaign to Eradicate Forced Labor Yields Multiple Corporate Commitments, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2017-08
- Industry Coalition's Pledge to Prohibit Recruitment Fees Paid by Workers Seen as Important Step to Curb Slavery in Electronics Supply Chains, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2015-04-07
- 5 Global Corporations Adopt 'No Fees' Ethical Recruitment Provisions Across Global Supply Chains, Sustainable Brands, 2017-08-09
- Despite 'No Fees to Workers' Policies, Workers Are Still Paying, Verité
- Costco Responds to Shareholder Proposal and Reduces Risk of Forced/Slave Labor Cotton in Supply Chain, press release hosted by San Jose State University, 2016
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Led the multi-year 'No Fees' shareholder and investor engagement campaign that produced supplier-code commitments from Ford, GM, Hormel, Marriott and Michael Kors and helped drive the 2015 electronics-industry code amendment.
Filed a 2018-2019 shareholder resolution at Hanesbrands asking for a public report on the company's human-rights and forced-labor risk assessment process; the resolution was withdrawn after the company agreed to engage.
Filed the 2021 Wendy's shareholder proposal, approved by over 95% of votes cast, asking for a report on human-rights protections for farmworkers in the company's supply chain.
Organized farmworker testimony and pressure at Wendy's annual shareholder meetings pushing the company to join the Fair Food Program's anti-forced-labor protections.
5 campaigns on record
Report on human-rights protections, including COVID-19 protections, for farmworkers in Wendy's produce supply chain
Result: Approved by more than 95% of votes cast
We found no documented change: Wendy's published a report in December 2021 that the proponents publicly called "fundamentally non-responsive," and the company has still not joined the Fair Food Program.
Investors and Farmworkers Call for Accountability at Wendy's, Investor Advocates for Social Justice
Report on the company's process for identifying and analyzing human-rights and forced-labor risk in its supply chain
Result: Agreement reached; resolution withdrawn before a vote
We found no documented public disclosure of what Hanesbrands specifically changed after the agreement; the resolution record shows only that it was withdrawn following company engagement.
Adopt a public 'no fees' ethical-recruitment policy: no worker-paid recruitment fees, clear written contracts, no confiscation of identity documents
With Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment
Result: All five companies adopted public no-fees policies in their supplier codes of conduct
Policy commitments made across food/agriculture, hospitality, apparel and automotive sectors; Verité's later research found fewer than 10% of employers were actually paying full recruitment costs, showing a persistent policy-to-practice gap.
5 Global Corporations Adopt 'No Fees' Ethical Recruitment Provisions, Sustainable Brands
Increase supply-chain transparency and address child and adult forced labor in Uzbek cotton used in Kirkland Signature clothing
Result: Agreement reached with the company
Costco signed the Responsible Sourcing Network's Cotton Pledge, committed to documenting country of origin for cotton products, and joined the Cotton Campaign's economic-leverage working group.
Amend the industry code of conduct to prohibit companies and their suppliers from charging workers recruitment fees
Result: Code amended April 2015 to add a 'no fees' provision
Zero-tolerance recruitment-fee language was added to the code; independent follow-up research later found implementation lagging (see 2022+ Verité finding below).
Industry Coalition's Pledge to Prohibit Recruitment Fees Paid by Workers, ICCR
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Universal Declaration of Human Rights's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.