"The 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report outlines the continuing challenges across the globe, including in the United States. The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America.

Working conditions in China is not a new issue and the Chinese government is making efforts to address it, Wenjuan Yao from Verité told CNBC Thursday. Verité monitors working conditions in China. Unions are also helping by organizing workers in foreign and private companies, Yao said.

It may be the 21st century, but virtual slave labour still contributes to supply chains around the world. BNN looks at contract manufacturing processes in China, and what Western companies are doing, if anything, to combat unfair labour practices. Dan Viederman, executive director, Verite, explains. 

A sobering new report from the State Department finds that more than 12 million people worldwide are victims of "trafficking in persons" — trapped in forced labor, bonded labor or forced prostitution. But just 4,166 people were convicted of trafficking last year, the report says.

China’s worker unrest showed no signs of abating on Friday, with about 500 employees protesting at a Honda lock factory, in actions that point to the end of an era of cheap labour for some of the world’s biggest household names, experts say.

Incidents such as the 10 suicides at a factory making Apple’s best-selling iPhone, as well reports of “slave-labour” type conditions at a factory manufacturing Xbox controllers and mice for Microsoft have put the spotlight back on the abuses of workers in the world’s manufacturing hub.

Contract manufacturer for such electronics companies as Apple and HP faces questions about its labor practices in the aftermath of suicides by workers.

SocialFunds.com -- Since January, at least ten employees of Foxconn, the giant contract electronics manufacturer whose facility in Longhua, China employs some 300,000 workers, have committed suicide, most of them by jumping from the roof of the four-story dormitories in which they lived. Foxconn manufactures products for such US-based computer companies as HP, Dell, and Apple.

In 2007, I invested $10 million in Maui Land and Pineapple Company, Inc. I was pleased to invest in a company that had such an important legacy here in Hawaii. I am a minor investor in the company. I have no involvement in operations.

Not long ago, cleaning the kitchen meant picking up a bottle of Fantastik or Formula 409. Such products were synonymous with clean to many Americans. But not to ecominded entrepreneur Jeffrey Hollender. When he started Seventh Generation in 1988, nontoxic cleaners and recycled paper products were a rarity in retail.

NEW YORK – April 21, 2010 – Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), a leader in socially responsible investing (SRI) for Catholic institutions, has issued a call to action for hotel chains in South Africa to help combat a rise in human trafficking and child sex tourism in association with FIFA World Cup events being held throughout the country between June 11 and July 11, 2010. Human trafficking is one of CBIS’s priority issues and the presence of millions of tourists and spectators attending World Cup events is expected to greatly magnify the problem in the region.

1:10 A.M. — The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has scored another victory in its Campaign for Fair Food.

Food service giant Aramark agreed to pay extra for Florida tomatoes produced under a strict code of conduct.

The $12 billion Philadelphia-based Aramark supplies food to corporations, schools, health care facilities and sports venues around the world (including FGCU and Fort Myers' City of Palms Park) and is one of the nation's biggest private companies, with 255,000 employees and clients in 22 countries.