Mitsui & Co., a major trading company, is making a new "visualization" to companies and consumers that forced labor is not being carried out at raw material suppliers, while a strict eye is being focused on companies' response to human rights issues. We have decided to embark on a service.
Regarding the response of companies to human rights issues, there is a growing international criticism that cotton products in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China are suspected of being produced by forced labor.
Under these circumstances, Mitsui has decided to launch a new service that "visualizes" information such as the sources of raw materials, and is conducting demonstration experiments targeting small-scale cotton farmers in Zambia, Africa.
In the new service, we will centrally collect information on the product supply network = supply chain, such as the production method of raw materials and the factory where it was processed, through our partner overseas companies.
In addition to providing information such as whether forced labor is being carried out in the production process to the company that sells the product, if the QR code on the tag of the product is read with a smartphone for consumers, the producer's information can be seen at a glance. We will prepare a mechanism to confirm.
The company plans to invite domestic apparel companies to participate and start the service by next summer.
Mitsui & Co.'s Risakiko Morikawa says, "By expanding this system to products other than clothing, we would like to realize a healthy and sustainable supply chain."