For those who think bonded labor and slavery are things of the past, talking to Matthew Friedman will prove to be an eye-opener.
The founder and CEO of The Mekong Club, Friedman is a global expert on modern slavery and human trafficking. An award-winning filmmaker, author and philanthropist, Friedman has been consistently working towards sourcing the support of business leaders for the anti-slavery movement in Asia’s business sector.
The Mekong Club is a non-profit organization that works along with the private sector to bring about sustainable practices against modern slavery across the globe. Established in 2011, through his organization, Matthew has built a community across various industries and is working towards creating a slavery-free world.
Matthew has managed and directed tens of millions of dollars to major humanitarian portfolios impacting millions of people for the World Bank, the U.S. State Department and the United Nations.
In an exclusive interview with The Cyber Express, Friedman elaborated on how the evolution of the tech industry has trickled its way into his work. He further shared an incident where he and his team developed a tool to track responses from workers at a factory they had to audit.
“The auditor goes up to the workers and gets them to press the flag from where they come from. And then, with headphones on attached to the phone, it would ask them about 20 questions in their language. Some of them are safe, but others may reveal vital information, such as do you have any indebtedness? Do you work overtime and not get paid? Do you have your passport being withheld by somebody?”
With the help of this simple technology, auditors were able to understand the condition of the workers and identify the extent to which there’s exploitation in a factory, which in the past, despite being audited 20 times, was never found.
In 2019, the Mekong Club, the key partner for UNUMACAU’s Apprise Audit app, was awarded the Public Affairs Asia (PAA) Gold Standard Award in the “Thought Leadership” category for their work and contribution in “harnessing technology to end modern slavery” for the digital application
As part of The Mekong Club’s drive to initiate conversations on modern and surrogate slavery, Matthew has given more than 900 presentations including 129 keynote speeches. He has reached over 90,000 people at more than 2,000 corporations, 167 schools and 78 faith-based events.