Businesses don’t operate in isolation. They’re embedded in societies shaped by deep and persistent inequalities—inequalities that affect who gets access to healthcare, education, and housing, and who gets hired, promoted, and protected at work. These disparities don’t stop at the factory gate or office door. When companies ignore them, they risk reinforcing the very systems that harm those already most at risk, missing the point of effective due diligence.
Human rights due diligence is not just a compliance exercise for companies —it’s a matter of respecting people’s rights. And not just any people, but those most at risk of being harmed, excluded, or silenced by the way global value chains operate. Vulnerable groups are not a footnote to due diligence—they are its very core. When they are overlooked, due diligence fails.
Who Are Vulnerable Groups and Why Focus on Them?
Vulnerable groups are individuals or communities who, due to social, economic, political, or physical circumstances, face heightened risks of exploitation, exclusion, or harm. What makes them vulnerable is not inherent to who they are, but the systems and structures that consistently fail to protect them. These groups often have limited access to resources, rights, and opportunities, making them more susceptible to inequality in the workplace and society. Vulnerability can stem from a variety of factors—and it’s not limited to a single country, sector, or industry.
Vulnerable groups are individuals or communities who, due to social, economic, political, or physical circumstances, face heightened risks of exploitation, exclusion, or harm.
What makes them vulnerable is not inherent to who they are, but the systems and structures that consistently fail to protect them. These groups often have limited access to resources, rights, and opportunities, making them more susceptible to inequality in the workplace and society. Vulnerability can stem from a variety of factors—and it’s not limited to a single country, sector, or industry.
Key characteristics include:
- Precarious employment: Workers in informal, low-paid, dangerous, or unstable jobs—especially in sectors like agriculture, construction, mining, or informal work.
- Discrimination and exclusion: Based on gender, migration status, caste, disability, age, or LGBTQI+ identity.
- Lack of representation: Workers excluded from decision-making processes that directly affect them. Little or no access to unions or other ways to speak up about their rights.
- Isolation and invisibility: Workers in isolated environments like domestic jobs or remote rural industries.
- Lack of legal protection: Workers in sectors or regions where labor protections are weak or non-existent. This makes it easier for exploitation to go unnoticed—especially in informal or unregulated work.
The Complexity of Identifying Vulnerabilities
Identifying vulnerabilities within supply chains is not always straightforward, especially when viewed through a Global North perspective or from a position of privilege –unfamiliar with the realities of the affected people. Factors such as gender, caste, and migration status can intersect, creating layers of discrimination that are not immediately visible without proactive and informed investigation. That’s why understanding vulnerability requires local knowledge and intersectional awareness.
Examples of vulnerable groups include:
- Indigenous peoples: They manage about 25% of the world’s land, and around 50% of land needed for renewable energy is on or near Indigenous territories. Yet, they often lack representation in decisions affecting their land and livelihoods.
- People with disabilities: Around 16% of the global population lives with a disability and about 80% are of working age. Yet, many face persistent barriers to equal employment, education and workplace accessibility. These challenges are intensified for women and individuals in the so-called Global South, where they often experience multiple layers of discrimination and exclusion.
- Migrant workers: They are often engaged in insecure, low-paid jobs with limited legal protection facing higher risks of exploitation. For instance, in Spain’s Almería region, approximately 25,000 to 30,000 undocumented migrant workers are employed in the greenhouse agriculture sector. These workers often receive wages far below the minimum and live in unsanitary conditions.
- Temporary and informal workers: Globally, over 60% of workers are in informal employment, lacking legal protection, social security benefits, and employment rights. Without job security, access to social protections, or safe working conditions, they are especially vulnerable to exploitation.
- Women: Women often face systemic discrimination not only in pay, promotion, and working conditions, but also in personal safety and dignity at work. Globally, women continue to earn less than men and are underrepresented in leadership roles. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Gender Gap Report, it will take exactly 134 years for the gender gap to close. In addition, women are disproportionately affected by violence and sexual harassment—both within and beyond the workplace.
- Children: Nearly every country in the world has laws against it, yet child labor persists across global supply chains. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), 160 million children between ages 5 and 17 are engaged in child labor, with about half of them working in hazardous conditions. These children are denied education, face health risks, and are often trapped in cycles of poverty and exploitation.
- LGBTQI+ individuals: Face discrimination in hiring, harassment at work, and limited access to social protections or legal recourse. Trans and non-binary people are especially vulnerable, often pushed into informal or unsafe work environments due to widespread stigma. In contexts where LGBTQI+ identities are criminalized or culturally marginalized, risks are even greater—and often invisible in standard assessments.
- Older persons: Older workers may face age discrimination that excludes them from employment opportunities, skills training, or access to social protections. In physically demanding jobs, they may also face health and safety risks without appropriate accommodations. In rapidly changing industries, older individuals are often overlooked in reskilling programs, making them more susceptible to poverty and social exclusion.
Understanding who is most vulnerable helps businesses take more informed, responsible actions. It’s about recognizing who may be excluded or at risk and actively considering their realities in business decisions.
Case Study: Women Workers in Kenyan Tea Plantations
For example, Oxfam’s recent briefing paper, “Change the Way You Do Business: Leading with Women Workers’ Voices,” offers a compelling case study of Kenyan tea estates, where women often endure sexual and gender-based violence, exploitative working conditions, and inadequate pay. These issues are deeply entrenched in patriarchal norms and power imbalances, exacerbated by business practices that prioritize low costs over human rights. The report emphasizes that such exploitation is not merely a cultural artifact but is perpetuated by corporate practices that fail to account for the lived realities of these workers. Addressing these issues requires companies to listen directly to women’s voices and integrate their insights into business decisions.
Case Study: Caste Discrimination in South Asian Supply Chains
Another layer of complexity is introduced by caste-based discrimination in South Asia. At a recent OECD side event, a panel highlighted how caste discrimination continues to drive labor exploitation in the garment and leather industries across India and Pakistan. Dalit workers—especially women—are overrepresented in hazardous, informal, and underpaid roles. Many are trapped in bonded labor systems like Tamil Nadu’s “Sumangali Scheme,” where young Dalit women are promised jobs but instead face isolation, exploitation, and withheld wages. Such practices are deeply rooted in social hierarchies that may be invisible to external observers but have profound implications for workers’ rights and dignity. Companies must proactively assess and address caste-based risks to avoid that they go undetected. Generic audits or top-down solutions will miss them entirely.
Case Study: Workers with Disabilities
People with disabilities remain significantly underrepresented in the workforce—not due to lack of ability, but due to systemic barriers in recruitment, bias, and a lack of accountability.
In Germany, employers with 20 or more employees are legally required to allocate at least 5% of jobs to people with recognized severe disabilities. Yet in in recent years, more companies chose to pay a compensatory levy instead of hiring disabled workers. According to the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency only about one-third of eligible companies actually fulfilled their obligation.
And even when in employment, workers with disabilities continue to encounter physical, procedural, and bias-based barriers that limit their access to participation in the workforce, especially when accommodations are lacking. Inaccessible equipment, lack of ergonomic tools, or biased assumptions about capability often result in exclusion—from both daily tasks and career opportunities. These risks are amplified when disability is invisible or stood. Companies often lack relevant data and fail to include these groups in assessments or mitigation plans—leaving significant blind spots in their operational processes.
It shows that companies need to take proactive steps to identify and remove barriers in their own operations. This includes collecting disaggregated data, consulting directly with affected groups, and adapting workspaces and hiring processes to meet diverse needs.
Case Study: Migrant Workers in Transport and Logistics
In 2023, a series of strikes by Eastern European truck drivers in Germany brought long-overdue attention to the exploitative conditions faced by migrant workers in logistics in the European logistics sector. These protests, organized by workers, exposed the structural abuses hidden behind complex subcontracting chains – including withheld wages, excessive working hours, inadequate housing, and inhumane working conditions.
These cases indicate that many drivers are recruited into the EU logistics system through intermediaries that misclassify them as self-employed. This legal grey zone strips them of basic protections: many live for weeks or months in their trucks, without proper sanitation, rest facilities, or legal recourse. In some cases, workers from countries like the Philippines are recruited, citing their greater vulnerability and limited options as advantages.
This practice reflects a troubling business logic: the more precarious the worker’s situation, the more dependent and vulnerable they become to exploitation. As a result, many migrant workers often work under coercive conditions, fearing job loss, deportation, or debt if they speak out.
What these examples have in common is that they cannot be solved with generic solutions. Better training sessions, workplace improvements, people processes, or supplier contracts and codes of conduct won’t be effective unless they’re designed with the specific needs of those most affected in mind.
This is why vulnerable groups must not just be included—they must be central to due diligence efforts.
Due Diligence Laws Aren’t About Ticking Boxes – They’re About Shifting Perspectives
Human rights due diligence laws —such as the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) and the forthcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)—require companies to identify, prevent, and mitigate risks to people and the environment across their operations and supply chains.
The LkSG, while not explicitly naming “vulnerable groups,” requires companies to consider the interests of affected workers and communities and is rooted in international human rights conventions—including ILO standards on child labor, non-discrimination, and minimum working age. These reflect a clear concern for populations at heightened risk, such as children, women, and marginalized workers.
The CSDDD is more explicit in its recitals. It calls for companies to pay specific attention to vulnerable stakeholders—such as indigenous peoples—and to ensure their inclusion in due diligence processes, particularly in consultations and impact assessments.
Accounting for vulnerable groups is an integral part of a risk-based approach.
At their core, both laws are grounded in a risk-based approach, meaning companies must focus on the most severe risks—and that inevitably includes those faced by vulnerable and marginalized groups.
A risk-based approach enables companies to focus their efforts and resources effectively by prioritizing based on the severity and likelihood of harm. And the reality is: the most severe harms almost always fall on the most vulnerable. These groups must be specifically included in risk analyses and in the development of targeted actions. Ultimately, it’s about allocating available resources where they are most needed — focusing on the highest risks and ensuring that those most at risk receive the attention and support necessary to safeguard their rights.
Accounting for vulnerability isn’t an add-on to due diligence—it’s a key element. This doesn’t mean companies need to have all the answers – but it does mean taking a closer, more honest look at how systems of inequality are intertwined with business activities, asking better questions, listening to those most affected, and designing processes that reflect their realities.
In Part Two of this series, we’ll explore how companies can do exactly that: From identifying vulnerabilities in practice, to adapting methodologies, and making participation more inclusive—we’ll share practical tips and examples to help bring due diligence closer to those who need it most.
If you’re looking to sharpen your lens and make your due diligence efforts more people-centered, we’d be happy to support you along the way: hello@peopleatcore.com.
