Aim of the meeting

Around the world, there is growing support in the business community to join with governments and NGOs to combat the growing global scourge of human trafficking. Regional Summit for business and government leaders, held by Vital Voices Global Partnership, together with CSR-Asia, End Human Trafficking Now Campaign, Eileen Fisher, Manpower, Microsoft, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. This Summit is the launch of a two-year initiative that will focus attention on corporate social responsibility to combat human trafficking and forced labour in Asia. It will showcase innovative business practices that are curbing human trafficking for both labour and sexual exploitation.

Part of the initiative involves the signing of the Athens Ethical Principles, set up in January last year as part of the End Human Trafficking Now campaign launched by corporations and NGOs. Businesses signing the principles pledge ``zero tolerance'' to working with companies or organizations involved in human trafficking. David Arkless, senior vice president of corporate affairs at Manpower, said 146 global corporations had joined the antitrafficking movement by January this year.

Programme

Plenaries

• Everybody's Business: The Impact of Human Trafficking and Forced Labour on Your Business
• Creating Opportunities: The Multi-Stakeholder Approach to End Human Trafficking and Forced Labour.
• Innovative Business Solutions to End Human Trafficking and Forced Labour
• Goal: showcase three different types of business action and private-public partnerships. Each group will have lead discussants sharing their companies' work, in roundtable format with a moderator.
• Advancing Corporate Social Responsibility to End Human Trafficking and Forced Labour
• Help CSR officers make a compelling case within their companies, including communication strategies, public relations, brand management, building the link between human trafficking and business, and real-term profits (investor relations and cost analysis).

Panels

• Understanding the Challenges and Taking Action (Room: The Golden Pen)
  Conducting research, analyzing laws/policies, identifying problems through business practices, participating events/conferences, auditing/CSR, signing ethical codes of conduct, connecting forced Labour and human trafficking.
• Building Capacity (Room: Nathan Room 1)
  Training law enforcement, employee education/training, community development, poverty alleviation, strengthen mandatory education, job skills training, generating local economy, and providing resources to civil society
• Raising Awareness - Global Initiative (Room: Nathan Room 2)
  Media reporting, movie/documentary making, advertising, airline campaign, consumer awareness raising through products and advertisement, company policy

Participants

• Ms. Melanne Verveer, Co-Founder and Chair, Vital Voices Global Partnership, former Chief of Staff to US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
• Mr. David Arkless, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Manpower, Inc.
• Mr. Jeffrey Avina, Director of Operations, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• Ms. Lori Forman, Asia Regional Director, Community Affairs, Microsoft
• Dr. Aleya Hammad, Member of the Board, Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement
• Ms. Yang Lan, TV Anchor and Talk Show Host; Chair, Sun China Culture Foundation
• Mr. Roger Plant, Head, Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour, International Labour Organization
• Ms. Yenny Wahid, Special Advisor to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Social and Women's issues, Indonesia
• Professor Richard Welford, Co-Director, CSR-Asia