GoodWeave Names New BOD & Standards Committee Members

Washington, DC, October 21, 2022--GoodWeave International, a nonprofit organization working to end child, forced and bonded labor in global supply chains, has added Siddharth Kara and Jacqueline Joudo Larsen to its board of directors, while also appointing new standards committee members.

The Standards Committee oversees the development and revisions of the GoodWeave International Generic Standard, which assures no child, forced or bonded labor is used in the making of carpet, home textile and apparel products. New members are Obie Paul Byrum, chief compliance officer at Loloi Rugs; Biko Nagara, chief programs officer at Living Wage for U.S.; David Ould, former director of Anti-Slavery International; Elisabeth Bystrom, senior director of programs at GoodWeave International; Hem Bahadur Moktan, child development officer at Nepal GoodWeave Foundation; Kathleen Brenninkmeijer, director of Win-Win Strategies; Priyanka Ribhu,  general secretary of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan; Raj Kumar Lama, an independent manufacturer and exporter of hand knotted carpets in Nepal; Saurabh Gupta, managing partner of Devgiri Group; and Vinti Singal, Inspections, Monitoring and Certification (IMC) head for GoodWeave Certification Private Ltd in India.

Kara is a leading researcher and activist on modern slavery and child labor, and author of several books including “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery,” “Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia,” “Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective,” and the forthcoming “Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives.” 

Joudo Larsen is deputy director and head of global research at Walk Free, an international human rights organization working to end modern slavery, and a co-author of the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery and several editions of the Global Slavery Index.