RESOLVED: The shareholders request that the Board of Directors of Amazon prepare a report, at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary or confidential information, on Amazon’s management systems and processes to implement its commitment to prohibit human trafficking in its operations.

WHEREAS: Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. The U.S. Department of State has emphasized the importance of training for individuals who may encounter victims of human trafficking and has identified the transportation industry as being particularly well-placed to identify and assist trafficking victims.

According to the International Labor Organization's most recent global estimate, there are at least 40.3 million victims of forced labor, trafficking, and modern slavery in the world today; globally, one in four victims of modern slavery are children.[1] In the United States, it is estimated that there are over 400,000 individuals living in a form of modern slavery.[2]

Trafficking victims are often hidden in plain view at construction sites, restaurants, agricultural fields, and highway rest stops. The U.S. transportation industry has the potential to play a vital role in identifying and assisting these victims. Since its creation, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center has identified over 49,000 cases of human trafficking, and more than 1,100 reports have been from callers who self-identified as truckers.[3]

While Amazon’s UK site includes a statement on trafficking pursuant to the Modern-Day Slavery Act and Amazon has issued its Global Human Rights Principles[4] that note its zero-tolerance of the use of “child labor, forced labor, or human trafficking in any form” Amazon has not disclosed sufficient information on how it will implement this commitment or its efforts to assess, identify, and prevent trafficking in its operations.

Failure to address the risks of human trafficking in its transportation operations places Amazon behind its peers and given the significant scale of its delivery operations, this creates potential reputational and financial risks for the company. Other companies, such as Albertsons, Costco, FedEx, and UPS, that either own and operate their own fleets or contract with third-party carriers have addressed the issue through awareness and prevention training for drivers, publicly partnering with organizations like Truckers Against Trafficking, and providing trafficking prevention resources to their employees and suppliers.

As of 2019, Amazon’s transportation services include approximately 65 aircraft, 300 tractors and several thousand truck trailers, over 22,000 delivery vans, and the use of cargo ships.[5] Given the growing size and global footprint of Amazon’s delivery fleet and logistics operations, we believe commercial advantages may accrue to our company by addressing these issues through the adoption of a more extensive policy addressing human trafficking, and by promoting training and programs to combat trafficking in Amazon’s transportation operations and with its third-party carriers.

[1]https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_575479.pdf

[2] https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/united-states/

[3] https://humantraffickinghotline.org/states

[4] https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/governance/amazon-global-human-rights-principles

[5] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-vehicles-used-deliver-packages-2019-7#amazon-prime-air-9