Introduction to Andy Hall
Who is Andy Hall?
Andy Hall is a human rights defender and independent migrant worker rights specialist, researcher/investigator and activist, based in Asia since 2005.
Born in the United Kingdom, he lived in Thailand from 2005 to 2016, during which time he became an internationally recognised human rights defender, migration specialist and campaigner on migrant rights, empowerment and modern-day slavery within international supply chains.
During his 12 years working on global supply chains linked specifically to Thailand, he focused his advocacy mainly on the plight of migrant workers from Cambodia, Laos PDR and Myanmar. He is fluent in Thai language.
He has in the past held several notable posts, including as a foreign expert in migration at Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research and as an advisor to the Myanmar government in Naypyidaw.
He frequently travels to address committees and plenary sessions of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg, on invitation from the Parliament’s Vice President and various other MEPs, as a recognized and expert voice on migration, human rights and forced labour issues.
From 2018 to 2021, he was a special advisor on migration issues to Impactt, an ethical trade consultancy in the UK, providing general advice and capacity building on migration and forced labour issues to the organisation.
He also continues to support Elevate/LRQA, a global social compliance company, in its forced labour and migration related advisory work in Asia.
He has lived in Nepal from 2018, focusing on migrant worker issues there, whilst remaining also active on migrant worker rights across Asia and into the Middle East and Gulf States. He is currently involved in several responsible recruitment pilot projects across Asia.
From 2020, he has been an advisor on migrant worker management issues, mainly focusing on foreign worker ethical recruitment issues, to CP Group (Thailand) and Sime Darby Plantations (Malaysia).
In 2021, he commenced work as migration advisor to a glove maker and a second palm oil company in Malaysia.
He occasionally engages other large, medium and small companies in Asia and globally that are hiring migrant workers in their operations and supply chains.
Whilst he acts increasingly as an advisor to companies and investors, as well as civil society, trade unions and governments, he firmly remains a migrant worker rights advocate at heart, most recently exposing recruitment abuse impacting Indonesian and Nepalese workers in the UK’s seasonal workers scheme.
He work to expose migrant labour abuses and their links to major corporations has led to some important shifts in corporate behaviour, including pushing companies to place greater focus on human rights due diligence in their supply chains and cooperate in remediating issues that Andy has challenged them on.
Despite some positive progress, he maintains that companies could do far more to address migrant labour abuses in their supply chains, and need to make this a core part of how they do business.
Andy Hall’s Education
Andy has has a 1st Class Honours Law degree (LLB) from University College London (UCL), and has been awarded several academic prizes and scholarships.
He studied at a postgraduate level at the Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University, Wales and at the Criminology Department at the University of Melbourne.
His postgraduate research focused on Commonwealth proposals to develop occupational health and safety laws relating to organisational criminal responsibility and accountability for industrial deaths and disasters.
Andy Hall’s Other Work
Andy frequently does investor briefings on migrant worker management and forced labour issues, whilst working currently on several large scale migrant worker ethical recruitment pilot projects across South and South East Asia and into the MENA region.
Since 2009, he advised and assisted the Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN), a Myanmar migrant worker membership based organisation with over 5,000 members, based in Mahachai, Samut Sakorn, Thailand and Yangon, Myanmar. He was international affairs advisor to MWRN until 2018.
From 2007 to 2016, he advised and assisted Thailand’s largest independent union confederation, the State Enterprise Workers Relations Confederation of Thailand (SERC), as an International Affairs Advisor.
In 2012, he organised Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s globally publicised visit to a migrant community in Mahachai, Samut Sakorn, Thailand.
In 2013, he worked for the International Management Group (IMG) under an EU funded project to support Myanmar’s Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security (MoLES) on migration policy development in Naypyidaw and Yangon.
From September 2014, he worked to support a defense team working to ensure fair trial and justice for the two Myanmar workers accused in the Koh Tao murder case.
Since 2016, he has been an advisor to Electronics Watch on migrant workers and forced labour issues in Asia. He also frequently assists Stronger Together on their global ethical recruitment programmes and monitoring tasks.
He currently advises Migration Dristi, an ethical recruitment consultancy based in Nepal that was formed by former migrant workers in 2021 to promote and monitor ethical recruitment practices across Asia.
He has published many research and academic papers and articles on the topic of migrant worker rights. He is frequently interviewed by global media as a recognized expert in this field.
Friend, foe and whistleblower can be read HERE
Hall heads for Paris but fight for rights goes on can be read HERE
For more information on publications, articles, and media quotes by Andy, see here.
