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Spotlight

Building Resilient Sugarcane Supply Chains: Advancing Human Rights, Decent Work, and Responsible Recruitment in Asia

ORGANIZED BY

Bonsucro

15-Sep

14:15-14:45

Conference Room 4

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How can businesses identify and address human rights risks beyond the first tier of the supply chain? This session explores practical strategies for strengthening responsible recruitment, worker voice, traceability, and resilience among smallholders, migrant workers, and vulnerable communities across Asia's sugarcane sector.

Overview

This session will explore how businesses, standards systems, governments, and supply chain actors can strengthen human rights due diligence (HRDD) and build resilience in sugarcane supply chains across Asia. Drawing on implementation experiences from the sugarcane sector, participants will examine practical approaches to addressing risks related to seasonal and migrant labour, responsible recruitment, worker voice, grievance mechanisms, traceability, and decent work. The discussion will also explore the challenges of extending HRDD into fragmented supply chains involving smallholder farmers, informal labour systems, and other vulnerable groups. Cross-sector insights from palm oil and/ or seafood will highlight emerging practices and collaborative approaches that can improve accountability, resilience, and inclusive sustainability outcomes across agricultural value chain.


Why it matters

Agricultural supply chains in Asia face growing expectations around sustainability, traceability &HRDD. In labour-intensive sectors like sugarcane, climate change, migration, informal labour systems,fragmented supply chains heighten risks of exploitation and exclusion.Producers,smallholders are under pressure to meet evolving market requirements. Protecting workers'rights, strengthening sustainability requires collaborative approaches that ensure transitions remain inclusive,equitable,effective.


Who should attend?

  • Sustainability and human rights professionals

  • Supply chain, sourcing, and procurement teams

  • sugarcane producers and industry associations

  • Standards and certification organizations

  • Governments and regulators

  • NGOs and development practitioners

  • Investors and ESG professionals

  • Worker, migrant, and smallholder farmer representatives, associations


What participants will gain

  • Practical insights into extending HRDD to deep-tier sugarcane/agricultural supply chains.

  • Examples of how responsible recruitment, worker voice, and grievance mechanisms can strengthen resilience and accountability.

  • Lessons from sugarcane, palm oil, and seafood sectors on managing labour and human rights risks.

  • Opportunities for collaboration between buyers, producers, governments, and standards systems to support inclusive and resilient supply chains.

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Jitradee Singhakowin

National Project Officer, International Organization for Migration (IOM) Thailand

Jitradee leads IOM’s work on Migration, Business and Human Rights, supporting responsible recruitment and improved working conditions for migrant workers. Her expertise includes supply chain due diligence, policy development, research, and stakeholder engagement across the seafood, sugarcane, and FMCG sectors.

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Joshua Abraham

Sustainable Development Specialist, ASEAN Sugar Alliance and Thai Sugar Millers Corporation (TSMC)

Sustainable Development Specialist representing the ASEAN Sugar Alliance and Thai Sugar Millers Corporation (TSMC), with over a decade of experience in sugar industry. Joshua specializes in sustainability standards, sugarcane traceability, greenhouse gas accounting, and responsible supply chain implementation. Joshua brings practical insights on integrating business and human rights to strengthen sustainable supply chains and long-term value creation.

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Manisha Majumdar

Head of Asia Pacific (APAC) at Bonsucro

Manisha Majumdar is Head of Asia Pacific (APAC) at Bonsucro, leading global sustainability platform and standard for sugarcane, where she leads regional engagement to advance sustainable agriculture, responsible supply chains, and human rights in the sugarcane sector. With over 20 years of experience in sustainability and multi-stakeholder partnerships across agriculture, she works with industry, governments, and development partners to drive collaborative action and practical solutions that strengthen sustainability performance and human rights outcomes across agricultural value chains.

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Aarti Kapoor

Founder and Managing Director, Embode

Aarti is the Founder and Managing Director of Embode, an independent human rights agency working across multiple sectors and all levels of supply chains. In establishing Embode, Aarti has oversees a client porfolio in embedding human dignity and rights across the world’s largest multinational corporations, their supply chain as well as whole-industry practices from fields and farms to manufacuring to board management. Her practice runs across issues of child labour, forced labour, labour migration and responsible recruitment. Her thought leadership focuses on shared accountability of business, government and communities in ensuring human dignity is protected. Aarti has spearheaded Embode's Ganapati Initiative, an innovative programme collaborating directly with supply chain businesses across Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and India. Aarti's 25-year career spans across UK government, local and international NGO experience in Asia, and corporate strategy internationally. She is a qualified lawyer with master’s degrees in Law and Economics as well as Systems Leadership and Organisational Analysis.

Speakers

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