Apparel & Footwear Industry Commitment to Responsible Recruitment

Originally initiated in October 2018, the Apparel & Footwear Industry Commitment to Responsible Recruitment was founded to align the industry around a clear and resolute commitment to the fair treatment of foreign migrant workers in the global textiles, apparel, footwear, and travel goods supply chain.

Under the original Commitment to Responsible Recruitment, each signatory committed to working with its partners to create conditions where workers:

• Do not pay for their jobs;
• Retain control of their travel documents and have full freedom of movement; and
• Are informed of the basic terms of their employment before joining the workforce.

In 2023, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) and the Fair Labor Association (FLA) re-launched and enhanced the Commitment.

The enhanced Commitment to Responsible Recruitment builds on learnings over the past five years. Signatories now commit to create conditions where workers receive a timely refund of any fees and costs paid to obtain or maintain their job, if such conditions were already imposed.

The signing companies agree to work to fully and effectively implement these practices, to incorporate the Commitment into their social compliance standards within one-year of signing, and to periodically report the signatory’s actions to imbed and implement the Commitment, such as through sustainability and/or modern slavery legal disclosures. Together with their members and Commitment signatories, AAFA and FLA will continue to review the enhanced Commitment to identify areas of future improvement.

Commitment

As an industry and as individual companies, we are committed to the fair treatment of workers in the apparel, footwear, and travel goods supply chains. One important part of this ongoing effort is working together to eliminate conditions that can lead to forced labor in the countries from which we source products.

We commit to work with our global supply chain partners to create conditions so that:

• No workers pay for their job
• Workers receive a timely refund of fees and costs paid to obtain or maintain their job;
• Workers retain control of their travel documents and have full freedom of movement; and
• All workers are informed, in a language they understand, of the basic terms of their employment before leaving their country of origin. 

Conditions for Signing the Commitment to Responsible Recruitment

For the Commitment to Responsible Recruitment to be an effective industry tool to address risks of forced labor, companies must have the intent to seriously and effectively implement the Commitments. Therefore, companies who sign the Commitment to Responsible Recruitment agree to do the following:

1. Incorporate the Commitment to Responsible Recruitment into their company social compliance standards, such as their code of conduct within one year from the date of signing;
2. Periodically report on their actions to imbed elements of the Commitment to Responsible Recruitment in company’s policies and processes, such as through their sustainability reporting and/or modern slavery legal disclosures.

Resources

• Commitment to Responsible Recruitment Resources List
• FLA/AAFA Action Plan on Responsible Recruitment in Malaysia
• ILO Global Study on Recruitment Fees and Related Costs
• Briefing on Protecting Migrant Workers in Your Supply Chain (August 11, 2021) – Recording / Slide Deck
• Migrant Worker Resources in Thailand / Proposed Standard on Repayment of Recruitment Fees (December 16, 2020) – Recording / Slide Deck
• Migrant Labor / Responsible Recruitment Implementation (June 18, 2020) – Recording / Slide Deck
• Responsible Recruitment in Thailand (December 12, 2019) – Recording / Slide Deck
• The Migrant Worker Journey and the Commitment to Responsible Recruitment (July 17, 2019) – Recording / Slide Deck
• Aligning Your Social Compliance Program with the Commitment (April 25, 2019) – Recording / Slide Deck