Golden Dreams

Over 50 million people are victims of modern slavery globally, from which 86% are trapped in forced labor situations in the private sector. This form of exploitation is widespread in global supply chains where a high percentage of the workforce are migrant workers, and is also growing in new informal sectors such as trafficking into online scamming. Migrant workers are three times more vulnerable to become victims of forced labor, and in the Asia and Pacific region on any given day there are 29.3 million people living in modern slavery conditions.

Many products sold globally might be stained by forced labor. In the countries where we work in South and Southeast Asia, foreign migrant workers are at high risk of becoming human trafficking or forced labor victims from the beginning of their labor journey. There are several factors contributing to this situation such as poor and murky recruitment processes, highly unstable living conditions, and insecurity that pushes workers to take desperate measures to find job opportunities. At the same time, workers can be equally vulnerable at the workplace where they can face abuse, exploitation, and several forms of forced labor, as highlighted in the Top 10 labor abuses in the workervoices.org Community Dashboard. 

Business audits and government inspections are not finding forced labor and human trafficking because most forced labor and human trafficking is characterized by less visible elements of control and exploitation such as debt bondage, overwork, and underpay, rather than the barred windows and chains that are often imagined in anti-trafficking advertisements. If and when auditors or inspectors ask exploited workers about their working conditions, if they are even able to speak migrants’ language, little to nothing protects victims from retaliation by their exploiters - so, understandably, the great majority stay silent to auditors and inspectors. 

But workers, victims, and survivors are not silent to each other or to service providers they trust. The anti-trafficking ecosystem needs more tools to amplify worker and survivor truths to better inform duty bearers from government, business, and civil society, and to help empower migrants and survivors with practical information and resources. This includes information about which employers and recruiters are good and legitimate, which to avoid, how to get assistance, how to find service providers and hospitals, and how to empower themselves and the people they love.

Migrants and survivors also often highly prioritize needing decent jobs to get themselves back on their feet, to feel stabilized, self-sufficient, and support families reliant on their income and remittances. Golden Dreams provides safe ways for vulnerable migrant workers to access and apply for jobs without being cheated or scammed by brokers or employers.

Recruitment of migrant workers into factories, farms, and fishing vessels in Asia can be highly exploitative, putting workers at risk of debt bondage and forced labor—and putting global brands, retailers, and importers at risk of having undetected modern day slavery in their supply chains. Golden Dreams reduces exploitative recruitment, forced labor, and human trafficking with technology to transform recruitment channels and the power and information asymmetries that put migrants and survivors at risk. It removes illegal brokers and unallowed fees, as well as the exploitative practice of workers being promised one set of working conditions but then being offered something different upon arrival to the workplace. Scalable, worker voice-driven tech that drives transparency, cuts out informal middlemen, and matches qualified workers to decent jobs is revolutionizing responsible recruitment down to the first mile.

Golden Dreams is a Yelp-like smartphone app by and for migrants and survivors that is a critical tool for education and empowerment, safe migration, ethical recruitment, and getting access to assistance if needed. Users can study updated information on costs and processes of migrating, and worker rights in destination countries, and also read crowdsourced, anonymized ratings and reviews on employers, recruiters, and service providers by their peers. There is also a Recruitment Marketplace, where responsible employers and recruitment agencies can post jobs, and workers can research the opportunities in their language, and even apply directly at no cost.

Key features of Golden Dreams: 

• The latest updates on rights, policies, and laws related to migrant workers in origin & destination countries, and relevant news

• Updated information on employers, recruitment agencies, and service providers such as hospitals and NGOs

• Rating and review functions allowing users to exchange views and opinions about employers, recruiters, and service providers anonymously

• Discussion groups and community polling to foster worker / survivor views, problem solving, and  learning on common issues 

• Easy and secure registration

• Ability to report a problem or seek immediate assistance from the Issara team, 24 hours a day, through a free helpline or private messaging

• A secure platform for the jobseekers to directly apply for ethical jobs advertised by registered recruiters and employers.   

How is Golden Dreams helping to end forced labor and human trafficking?

Information is power, and Golden Dreams has the power to drive real behavior and systems change at a scale required to make a measurable reduction in labor exploitation and human trafficking. We track impact in terms of how key actors are changing their behavior and how the ecosystem is being transformed. Within our behavior- and systems-change based theory of change, we examine how worker and survivors are identifying and avoiding exploitative situations, how victims of trafficking or forced labor are having greater access to information and services, and how recruitment agencies and employers are having more transparent and better systems to identify and address exploitative elements within their business. We also  focus on the transformation of global supply chains through partnerships  with global brands and retailers and providing an evidence base for practitioners and  governments.

Issara Institute programs and technologies are worker-voice-centered and we take ethics and security seriously, making sure there are safeguards for the people that we serve. We have developed an Updated Guide to Ethics and Human Rights in Anti-Trafficking: Ethical Standards and Approaches for Working with Migrant Workers and Trafficked Persons in the Digital Age (2018), which covers how to mitigate potential risks when working with vulnerable populations including human trafficking and forced labor survivors. These principles are implemented in all relevant aspects of our work. We equally provide Ethics training to relevant stakeholders, including Civil Society Organizations partners, who play a key role in introducing Golden Dreams to job seekers, migrant workers and survivors. 

We have also been part of the 2023 Tech Against Trafficking Accelerator Program which allowed us to enhance our security making sure the data of the people that we serve is highly protected. Additionally, we have been part of the Open Data Institute and Humanity United Peer Learning Network which was a great opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge on best practices related to data, technology and ethics. 

We've prioritized ethics from day 1 and have seen how the digital age has transformed and expanded both opportunities and threats to trafficked persons, and we are keen to find more expert guidance on ethical AI if we were granted an opportunity with MIT Solve.

Golden Dreams was designed with and for foreign migrant workers and survivors. In the context where we work (SouthEast Asia and South Asia) there are millions of job seekers looking for better job opportunities abroad due to different factors such as lack of or limited job opportunities in their communities or countries, life stability and security challenges, and/or wanting to have better job opportunities to improve their well-being and those of their families. At the same time having financial stability is one of the key empowering factors for survivors. However, there is limited reliable information that job seekers and survivors can access about how to find those job opportunities, how to safely migrate and how to find information about recruitment agencies and potential employers. Relying on social media platforms to find information is highly risky for job seekers and survivors as informal brokers and scammers use these platforms to find victims to extort or recruit for exploitative working conditions. 

Golden Dreams was launched in 2017 aiming to empower job seekers, migrant workers and survivors from Myanmar, Cambodia and Nepal. The platform is in workers’ languages where they can access and exchange information about recruitment, jobs, work, and life abroad in different destination countries, including thousands of workers’ and jobseekers’ reviews of employers, recruiters, and service providers—in a way similar to Yelp. 

In 2021, Issara launched Golden Dreams 2.0, with updated features such as peer discussion forums and a job recruitment marketplace to connect job seekers with actual open jobs advertised by registered recruiters and employers. The marketplace aims to mitigate the risks associated with informal brokers and scammers by connecting job seekers and survivors with ethical and reliable job opportunities. 

Golden Dreams has been adopted by 71,000+ job seekers, migrant workers and survivors and it is creating great impact on their lives as shared by a Burmese jobseeker in Bago, Myanmar:

"For the past six or seven months, I've been looking for jobs since I got my new passport. I faced challenges with fake job ads and unreliable agencies, which my friends also experienced. Despite my experience as a returned worker from Malaysia, finding a job was still tough. Fortunately, I discovered Issara on Facebook and the Golden Dreams marketplace for job seekers. Despite some difficulties, I persisted and managed to submit my CV through the Golden Dreams app after a few attempts. I frequently reached out to Issara's hotline and even shared application process screenshots to their Viber. After waiting for 40 days, the recruitment agency called me for an interview, and I passed it! The Golden Dreams app has been truly helpful for job seekers like me. Now, I'm sharing about the app with others and expressing my gratitude to Issara for their guidance. Having such resources to avoid scams and find genuine job opportunities is reassuring. I'm committed to helping others access the right job opportunities through Golden Dreams. Thank you, Issara!"

Issara Institute is an independent NGO (U.S. 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit corporation) based in Asia and the United States tackling issues of human trafficking and forced labor through worker voice, partnership, and innovation.  Dr. Lisa Rende Taylor, the Institute’s Founder and Executive Director, launched Issara Institute in 2014 after 20 years of service in the U.S. State Department, Asia Foundation, ILO, and UN to create a home for innovation, inclusion, and impact in anti-trafficking. The Inclusive Labor Monitoring (ILM) system and Golden Dreams smartphone app for migrant workers were built within the first five years, now positively impacting workers and survivors in the hundreds of thousands each year. The public face of ILM is at www.workervoices.org.

Of our team of 35, all but one are based in Asia, and the great majority are the nationality of the workers and survivors we serve, including Lisa who is Thai and American, based in Bangkok. Issara Institute operates directly in the countries of the people that we serve, where our team members are frontline service providers empowering job seekers, workers and survivors, and keeping Golden Dreams updated with information from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and UAE. Being locally based and locally invested allows us to connect with the people that we serve directly, to build long-term relationships of trust with them, and to better understand the realities they face.  

All of our tech, including Golden Dreams, are designed with and for workers and survivors, meaning that we not only hear from workers and survivors directly, but we design our programs and approaches in response to worker voice and the situation on the ground. As an example, the Golden Dreams Marketplace feature was created in response to workers and survivors needs and desires as explained here. 

Golden Dreams has been in-house developed and it is maintained by an energetic team of developers who understand the context and the needs of the people that we serve and look after innovative solutions to make the app more accessible and useful for workers and survivors

Golden Dreams application was launched in 2017, in 2020 we launched the second version of the application with new and improved features and in 2021 we launched the Marketplace feature. In June this year, we launched the most updated version which includes security and stability enhancements allowing us to provide better services for job seekers, migrant workers and survivors. The application has been adopted by 71,000+ users as of June, 2024 and it is in English, Myanmar language (Burmese), Nepal language (Nepali) and  Cambodia language (Khmer), and the language coverage will continue to expand with the years. Golden Dreams is used by prospective migrant workers, current workers, and survivors in countries of origin and destination such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Nepal as origin countries and Thailand, Malaysia, as destination countries.  We are in the early stage of expanding our geographic scope for other corridors as well, such as workers going to Gulf countries and Japan, and providing key features such as guides about workers rights in those regions..    

Golden Dreams is also highly used as a grievance mechanism by job seekers, workers and survivors. Users have reported over 5,800 labor issues and and seek information and support for remediation. The application is also an interactive platform for users to exchange their knowledge, experiences and views, with over  26,000 comments in the different features of the app.

We believe we are already using a groundbreaking, effective combination of high-tech and low-tech approaches and tools to empower workers and survivors, and to drive slavery-free supply chains. We see and understand well how the low-tech is just as important as the high-tech when deploying tech in countries like where we work, with users like the people we serve, and infrastructure as it is here. However, there is always a question of how we continue to grow and scale and what are the best approaches and strategies to do so. For this reason, we are applying to this challenge looking at the opportunity to be connected with experts in the global network and receive technical support on innovative approaches to scale our solution (Golden Dreams) and continue to expand its positive impact on workers' lives.

What is innovative about Golden Dreams?

GENUINE LOCAL OWNERSHIP.  The app has deep buy-in and ownership by job seekers, workers, survivors, trade unions, NGOs, government, and leading recruitment agencies, all who contributed to the app’s design.  

AMPLIFYING WORKER VOICE.  Features allow for peer-to-peer sharing through ratings of employers and recruiters, polls, and discussion forums—all amplifying the voices, knowledge, and power of workers.  

DYNAMIC & RELIABLE.  The app is dynamic. It is not a static information-access-only platform, but is interactive and updated on a daily basis by a multi-lingual team tapped into the latest labor migration policies and processes.

ACCESSIBLE ANYWHERE.  The app engages job seekers and workers across the full migration journey.  It provides safeguarded access to the most updated information, and an anonymized user experience wherever workers are; there is no need to travel to a physical office or interact with unknown authorities to get information.

VALUABLE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE. The app was designed for workers and the promotion of safer migration, but provides companies with a critical view of conditions in their supply chains that is vastly more credible than information gained from an audit.

SCALABLE.  We are changing and strengthening the recruitment systems of Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Malaysia.  The system is poised for growth through the rest of Asia to include more worker nationalities, and origin and destination countries, since the infrastructure  and best practices for stakeholder engagement are in place. 

TRANSFORMING RECRUITMENT CORRIDORS: THE JOB MARKETPLACE

In-depth consultation with workers, trafficking survivors, NGOs, and trade unions highlighted that if there is not a platform for finding and matching job seekers with actual jobs, there will still be a space for informal and exploitative brokers to thrive.  Therefore, Issara developed the recruitment marketplace feature for Golden Dreams in 2021, following additional in-depth consultation with leading progressive suppliers and labor recruiters.

On the platform, jobseekers can apply for jobs posted by vetted, legally registered recruiters or employers. Job advertisements, in order to be posted, must provide detailed information on the responsible recruitment policies of the supplier company, as well as the terms and conditions of employment as provided by the employer—meaning greater transparency and accountability about what recruitment-related fees should be paid by the employer vs. the worker, and about promised working conditions.

With a few clicks, jobseekers can create their own CV and file job applications. Jobseekers can also submit their CVs to the rosters of responsible recruitment agencies of interest, to be first in the queue for consideration for upcoming jobs. Recruitment agencies and employers can thus professionally manage thousands of applications and their related documents in a fair, secure, and digitized way. Huge stacks of paper files, including the personally identifiable information (PII) of job seekers, are becoming a thing of the past!

Issara Institute's impact since its inception in 2014 can best be understood within its behavior change and systems change-focused theory of change.  It recognizes that there are only 3 key actors directly involved in the act and process of labor exploitation and human trafficking within global supply chains, and it seeks to directly intervene and disrupt harmful behaviors and systems while empowering positive behaviors and systems.  The 3 actors are:

• The people being exploited (job seekers and workers);

• The people doing the exploiting (recruiters and employers); and,

• The people mandated to stop the exploitation - that is, the duty bearers (government and global brands and retailers).

Issara Institute's goal is to eliminate labor exploitation, including forced labor and human trafficking, within global supply chains, starting with those connected to Asia. The Institute's objectives in the theory of change relate to the actors listed above:

Objective 1. Worker voice and empowerment. Job seekers and workers actively identify and avoid exploitation.

Objective 2. Supply chain transformation. Recruiters and employers stop exploiting job seekers and workers.

Objective 3. Supply chain and ecosystem transformation. Global brands and retailers, and the government, actively stop exploitation and human trafficking.

Within our behaviour- and systems-change based theory of change, Golden Dreams and Issara Institute’s Inclusive Labor Monitoring and Ethical Recruitment programs assess its impact by tracking those aforementioned behavioral and ecosystem changes. 

Issara Institute Five Year Impact Report, Assessing 5 years of impact and trends in worker voice and responsible sourcing (2014-2019) outlines the impact of Golden Dreams on the lives of job seekers, workers, and survivors. The research paper on Worker feedback technologies and combatting modern slavery in global supply chains: examining the effectiveness of remediation-oriented and due-diligence-oriented technologies in identifying and addressing  forced labour and human trafficking (2019) also describes how Golden Dreams aims to empower and educate workers and jobseekers regarding the realities of the risks and patterns of labour exploitation, and how to avoid it. And workers have also shared how Golden Dreams is bridging the gap between ethical recruitment and supply chains.

As mentioned before, information is power, and Golden Dreams has the power to drive real behavior and systems change at a scale required to make a measurable reduction in labor exploitation and human trafficking. 

We are tracking our impact in terms of these behavior and systems changes (and more):

· Jobseekers and migrant workers are educating themselves about their work options and rights in destination countries, avoiding illegal brokers and unallowed recruitment fees, and successfully finding decent jobs through legal channels.

· Exploited workers, including victims of forced labor, have a safe, private way to seek assistance and intervention.  They are equipping themselves with knowledge about their rights and options, and exchanging and organizing with other workers to report abuses more powerfully and effectively.

· Suppliers/employers are becoming more accurate and transparent in the terms and conditions of employment they disclose to recruiters for public posting, and more accountable for delivering jobs to workers exactly as advertised.  The exploitative practice of workers being promised one set of working conditions by recruiters/brokers but then being offered something different upon arrival to the workplace is declining with Golden Dreams users.

· Recruitment agencies and recruitment agency federations are better identifying and addressing exploitative elements within their business and industry, and more generally are modernizing and professionalizing their sector’s systems.

· Global brands and retailers, as well as suppliers/employers, have an unprecedented new option for incentivizing more responsible recruitment in their supply chains. Leading progressive businesses have begun requiring suppliers to recruit their foreign workers through Golden Dreams. 

Government ministries of both origin and destination countries can strengthen their official bilateral recruitment channels based on real data regarding the structural weaknesses and failures of current systems.