Name: Joseph Zaraya

Social Justice Group: International Workers Rights

Date of Fieldwork: February 23, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Lauren Jackson (Walkfree Foundation)

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On Wednesday the 23rd of February our group was able to meet with Lauren Jackson. Lauren is a member of the Walkfree Foundation which is based in Western Australia, and is an International Human Rights Organization. Walkfree collects data on how many people are in forced labor, and how well governments are dealing with forced labor. Lauren told us that the main thing the Walkfree foundation is famous for is its Global Slavery Index which using many factors lets them estimate how much forced labor is in supply chains.

One thing I thought was really interesting was when Lauren told us about how Covid 19 has increased the amount of people in forced labor. She said that migrant and vulnerable workers were getting left out of relief plans to help people during the pandemic. These people were not getting good healthcare or social support so they were more desperate and would work for even cheaper than before.

When we interviewed Lauren one thing she told me that I had not really realized before was that as consumers we have a lot of impact on companies and what policies they have. This reinforced the idea that if we educated people about how companies use forced labor we could change these methods for the better.