Food company Mondelēz International announced the launch of its dedicated Human Rights Policy, outlining the company’s efforts to address issues ranging from child labor and forced labor to employee safety and health and compensation, as well as its policies for governing, monitoring and reporting on these issues.

Key commitments outlined in the company’s human rights policy include prohibiting child labor and forced labor in its operations, no tolerance of harassment in employment or employee treatment, use of internal and external expertise to provide a safe work environment, paying employees a living wage, providing equal opportunities for advancement, ensuring the right of employees to join or not join a union, bargaining with employee representatives in good faith, and respecting ownership and use of land and natural resources.

Mondelēz stated that its policy applies to all employees worldwide, including temporary and contract employees, as well as the company’s consultants, agents and any other third party who acts on behalf of the company.

Paulette Alviti, Chief People Officer and EVP Human Resources Mondelēz International, said:

“Training our 80,000 plus employees on our newly published Human Rights Policy is a significant step forward in helping all our employees understand the role they play in respecting internationally recognized human rights. Living our purpose, mission and values starts with putting people first. The implementation of policies like this is part of our ongoing efforts to build our employees’ awareness of our commitment to human rights whilst strengthening our internal capabilities to continue to improve due diligence practices.”

Along with the release of the new policy, Mondelēz announced that it has also joined IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative’s Living Wage Roadmap platform, aiming to help advance living wages in global supply chains. The platform works to strengthen international alignment and to build tangible solutions regarding living wage.

Dirk Van de Put, Chairman and CEO Mondelēz International, said:

“We recognize rising inequalities and poverty as underlying drivers of other human rights risks. Today we are proud to join forces with leading industry peers and governments through our endorsement of IDH’s call to action to advance living wages in global supply chains, as a further demonstration of our continuation of paying our own employees around the globe a living wage.”