2025 OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector

Side Session: Leveraging the impact of non-judicial remedy pathways to strengthen rule of law in garment producing countries and achieve greater corporate accountability for lead brands

Organized by: Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)

When:

Monday, February 10, 2025
8:30am Tegucigalpa / 9:30am New York / 2:30pm London / 3:30pm Paris / 8:00pm Delhi / 9:30pm Phnom Penh
90 minutes

Panelists:

• Dr Pratibha Ramanath, President of the Garment and Textile Workers’ Union (GATWU), India
• Yang Sophorn, President of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU), Cambodia
• Archana Kotecha, CEO, The Remedy Project, Hong Kong
• Aryane Trejo, Central America Field Representative, Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), Honduras

Moderator: Thulsi Narayanasamy, Director of International Advocacy, Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), United Kingdom
Languages: English with simultaneous translation to Khmer and Spanish.

Description:

This panel will explore how the WRC's long-standing experience of utilizing national labor laws in garment-producing countries to remediate labor violations can provide crucial insight into how new due diligence legislation could enhance the protection of the worker rights and shift industry approaches to both prevention and remedy of rights abuses.  

In this session, panelists will offer first-hand reflections of the remediation process of rights abuses and provide analysis of how the evolving industry response to remedy can inform approaches to undertaking effective human rights due diligence.  

Cases will examine how interventions—including an Indian union’s legal case which led to the recovery of $60 million in unpaid wages, a Cambodian union’s experience of remediating gender-based violence and harassment, and the strengthening of freedom of association in Honduras—ultimately strengthened the rule of law in countries where international brands had conducted insufficient due diligence.  

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