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Introduction

ILO through the 8.7 Accelerator Lab Programme has established new forms of collaboration and engagement to tackle the root causes of forced labour in the fishing sector including with academic institutions. At the global level, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Business School Network (GBSN) and the Geneva School of Economics and Management (GSEM) of the University of Geneva signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen collaboration on business and human rights education.

In this event, the ILO brought together a global network of business schools including a representative from the University of Diponegoro, who are committed to transforming business education that will create opportunities to pool academic, policy-oriented and practical expertise on key labour issues that affect responsible business conduct; including child labour, forced labour, discrimination, lack of workers’ representation, social dialogue, labour migration and fair recruitment.

As a follow-up of the global collaboration, the ILO through the 8.7 Accelerator Lab Programme has been working with the University of Diponegoro organizing a series of training workshops targeting journalism and business students as well as their faculty members in the context of combating forced labour and the elimination of child labour in the fishing sector. On 29 August 2023, ILO Director and Rector of Universitas Diponegoro signed a joint collaboration to support ILO’s strategies to build collaboration and engagement in tackling forced labour in the fishing sector. This new partnership is expected to increase the knowledge of business students and their faculty members including lecturers both men and women about forced labour in the fishing sector.

Following up this joint collaboration, the ILO’s 8.7 Accelerator Lab Programme will need to conduct a needs assessment and develop as well adapt the teaching resources for students of UNDIP referring to ILO toolkits teaching labour for business students and ILO toolkits on reporting forced labour for journalism students into UNDIP’s curriculum. Besides, in collaboration with UNDIP, the project will also scale up the teaching resources to four coastal universities in Central Java province. These teaching resources have been designed to help improve knowledge university students on labour rights issues and fundamental principles and rights of workers particularly on the forced labour and fair recruitment, and advance skills to cover stories of forced labour and fair recruitment.

The scale-up program will be implemented in partnership with the Faculty of Economics and Business and Department of Communication of UNDIP as well as four selected coastal universities in Brebes, Batang, Pemalang, Pekalongan, Tegal, and Pati [BREB – PEPETEP].