In the wake of the British Medical Association (BMA) publication “In good hands – Tackling labour rights concerns in the manufacture of medical gloves”, a number of institutions have been seeking reassurances from glove manufacturers on the working conditions in the factory. In the case of the London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC), this extended to a request to undertake an on-site social audit along with their appointed auditors Asian Inspection (now QIMA). Accordingly a visit was organised at the end of 2018 and a summary of the social audit report is now accessible from the news section of the LUPC.
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Of note is the following:
“The auditing team …found that the conditions in the factory were fully compliant to Malaysian law and mostly compliant with the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) code.”
“It is a positive action from SHIELD Scientific to allow its supply chain to be audited and it is worth noting their cooperation during this process to rectify all minor non-conformances”.