Coca-Cola, US government, ternary departments – Bitfury Group, Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA) and Emercoin are joining forces to combat forced labor using Blockchain Technology. Blockchain Technology goal is to create a secure registry for workers that can be used to fight forced labor, child labor, and other such exploitative practices.
Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA), a non-profit involved in this project, reports that the goal is to use the registry or ledger to provide a safe and secure way to validate workers and their contracts to Coca-Cola and other multinational constitution.
On the Tech part, Bitfury and Emercoin will be building and providing the blockchain necessary for this project to function.
The State Department will be taking an advisory role and provides command on labor rights and the protection of workers. Deputy Assistant Secretary Scott Busby says in an email, the blockchain technology cannot compel companies or authorities to abide by labor contracts and rights, it can provide a confirmation of those contracts, which may encourage those in authority to abide by rule of law.
A survey from International Labor Organization – nearly 25 million people work in forced-labor conditions worldwide, with 47 percent of them in the Asia-Pacific region.
Food and beverage companies are demanded to address the risk of forced labor in countries where they obtain sugarcane. A study by KnowTheChain (KTC) noted that the majority of food and drink groups fall short in their efforts to solve the problem.
The slope of this effort, Coca-Cola has committed to addressing this issue and says that this recent partnership with the State Department is just one of several blockchain-focused projects working for the past few years.
Brent Wilson, the fizzy company’s global head is keen on the aim of this project to increase transparency and efficiency of the verification process associated with Labor policies.
