Transparentem on Social Audit Deception

Social audits are a crucial tool for companies to monitor on-the-ground conditions at supplier factories. These audits are high-risk undertakings for suppliers as findings of violations can spur buyers to intensify oversight or terminate a business relationship altogether. Suppliers therefore have a strong incentive to ensure they pass audits, which leads some to deceive auditors, resulting in misleading and inaccurate findings. Recruiters who connect workers to jobs may also hide abusive practices from suppliers in ways that later prevent auditors from detecting these problems. Audit deception is a serious impediment to identifying and remedying human rights abuses in global supply chains. 

In this Voices conversation, Transparentem’s Andrew Korfhage and Sophie Broach speak to IHRB’s Guna Subramaniam. We discuss their recently published report, Hidden Harm: Audit Deception in Apparel Supply Chains and the Urgent Case for Reform. The report compiles evidence of efforts to conceal labour rights violations from social auditors in the apparel industry in India, Malaysia, and Myanmar, and research from peer organisations and academics which indicate that audit deception is a pervasive problem in apparel supply chains. Interviewed workers’ accounts reveal that many types of labor abuses can be hidden from auditors, including recruitment fees, child labour, passport retention, wage and hour violations, and hazardous working conditions. 

Andrew Korfhage is the Interim Vice President of Strategic Engagement at Transparentem, where he builds and manages critical partnerships and facilitates collaborative solutions to combat exploitative labor. Sophie Broach plans and coordinates investigations, analysing research data, and writes on labour and environmental violations in global supply chains.

Download the report, Hidden Harm: Audit Deception in Apparel Supply Chains and the Urgent Case for Reform

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Editor: Carmen Pedraza, IHRB's Migrant Workers Programme