Berlin, 04/20/2022. The European Union must oblige companies in all EU countries to protect human rights and the environment in their supply chains. This is what the "Initiative supply chain law" demands, a broad civil society alliance of more than 130 organizations on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster. On April 24, 2013, more than a thousand people died in the collapse of a textile factory in Bangladesh.
The initiative criticizes that the German supply chain law adopted last year will not be sufficient to effectively prevent such incidents in the future. The alliance therefore starts a new campaign under the motto "Yes EU CAN". In a joint petition, the associations call Chancellor Olaf Scholz to work for an effective EU supply chain law.
"The EU can move great and contribute to a fairer global economy-with a strong EU supply chain law that closes the gaps in German law. But this can only be done with tailwind from Germany! The traffic light has known itself in the coalition agreement on an effective EU supply chain law. Heeg, spokesman for the Initiative Lief chain law.
"Especially at the beginning of the supply chains, children and adults are exploited-for example in the extraction of raw materials: In India and Madagascar, 32,000 children are mineral mica, which then ends up in cars, electronics and cosmetics. Therefore, an EU supply chain law must record the entire value chain, without gradations and loafs," says Barbara Küppers from Terre des Hommes.
"In view of the climate crisis, all areas of entrepreneurial action have to be tested. An EU supply chain law is only contemporary if it contains strong environmental and climate-related diligence. (BUND).
"In the nine years since the Rana Plaza textile factory collapsed, people continue to harm people in the production of leather or shoes: Only in February there were fires in shoe factories in Turkey and Bangladesh. Those affected and their survivors have to have the chance to successfully sue compensation," emphasized Berndt Hinzmann from the Inkota network.
In February, the EU Commission presented a draft for an EU supplier chain law that goes beyond German law, but still contained many loopholes, as numerous civil society organizations from Germany and Europe criticized. In the further process, the European Council and the European Parliament must position themselves for the draft.
Terre des Hommes Germany, the BUND and the Inkota network are among the more 130 human rights, development and environmental organizations, unions and church actors who have come together to form the Initiative Supplails Act.
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