EMBRACE- Empowering Business Communities to Prevent Labour Trafficking

EMBRACE aims to prevent labour trafficking and exploitation by enhancing systemic responses and preventive measures from a Business and Human Rights perspective, focusing on high-risk sectors. By fostering robust and standardized mechanisms at the business and industry levels, the project seeks to detect and prevent labour trafficking, ensuring the protection of migrant workers’ rights, reducing the incidence of labour trafficking, and promoting accountability and ethical practices across global supply chains.

Spanning six (6) EU Member States—Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, and Poland—and including expertise from Finland and the Netherlands, the project emphasizes transnational, multi-stakeholder, and interdisciplinary coordination by bringing together businesses, migrants’ groups, civil society organizations that support migrants, frontline professionals and relevant public authorities.

The core of the project is the development of practical Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for businesses, enabling proactive prevention, identification, and response to labour trafficking in supply chains. These SOPs will be standardized for future certification, ensuring sustainable and widespread adoption. The project also addresses the identification of regions and services where labour trafficking among migrants is most prevalent, sharing best practices, and overcoming challenges.

To strengthen business capacity, the project will pilot SOPs across sectors, support civil society organizations in protecting migrants from online recruitment for labour trafficking, and train labour inspectors to spot and act on signs of trafficking. The online grievance platform will empower consumers, migrants, and workers to report incidents, fostering transparency and accountability in the private sector. Lastly, the project aims to develop policy recommendations and raise awareness among the general public and migrants about labour trafficking through various channels.

Consortium

Coordinator:

ELIAMEP-Greece

Beneficiaries:

Ministry of Migration and Asylum (MoMA) – Greece

Apostoli – Greece

UN Global Compact Network Greece (UNGCNG)-Greece

CESIE – Italy

Confesercenti Palermo – Italy

Bulgarian Foundation for Business and Human Rights (BFBHR) Bulgaria

National Commission for Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings (NCCTHB)- Bulgaria

Polish Institute for Human Rights and Business (PIHRB)-Poland

La Strada Foundation against Trafficking in Persons and Slavery,Poland

European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, UN-affiliated (HEUNI)-Finland

Commit Global – Netherlands

Access the project description on the EU’s Funding and Tender portal here.