A/HRC/35/37 company or the “silo” of a single supply chain towards sector-wide or market transformation to ensure that sustainability standards, including respect for human rights, are the norm in business. However, the role of such initiatives in sector transformation and their impact on national legal frameworks to promote labour and human rights has been challenged. 49. The above issues, along with the absence of good practices related to remedy for aggrieved workers, were raised throughout the consultation with multi-stakeholder initiatives and industry coalitions as areas for further engagement across supply chain initiatives. D. Engaging with multi-stakeholder initiatives and auditing companies 50. The Special Rapporteur deemed it essential to engage with multi-stakeholder initiatives, industry coalitions and representatives of the auditing industry in order to discuss how they address challenges and criticisms, and, through constructive dialogue, to identify areas on which further efforts should be focused. In particular, the consultations and subsequent follow-up activities provided opportunities to enhance learning about the risks of human trafficking in supply chains, consider the strengths and weaknesses of strategies to detect and remedy trafficking in persons, identify challenges and share good practices in auditing and assessments, explore current trends in the professionalization of the auditing industry, and explore synergies between participating organizations, the Special Rapporteur, governments and civil society. 51. The two consultations revealed that multi-stakeholder initiatives, industry coalitions and the auditing community were greatly interested in collaborating with the Special Rapporteur, recognizing the instrumental role that the Special Rapporteur can play in creating a space for open and ongoing dialogue and exchanges on lessons learned and good practices. As no other platform having the same level of credibility and independence as that of the Special Rapporteur exists, representatives of multi-stakeholder initiatives and auditing companies welcomed and encouraged the continuation of the initiatives led by the mandate holder with a view to identifying good practices that can be replicated in other contexts and exploring innovative responses to common challenges. 52. Regarding lessons learned and challenges in detecting cases of forced labour and trafficking in persons, representatives of the auditing community were asked to consider the strengths and weaknesses of current audit strategies, including how auditors addressed recruitment and migration practices, how they gathered information from workers, and challenges and constraints related to client expectations. 53. It was noted that, while social audits had contributed positively to establishing a baseline understanding of human rights and labour conditions in the workplace, other forms of engagement, including training and capacity-building for compliance staff and the development and dissemination of targeted guidance on human trafficking, were equally important. Other types of assessments were also highlighted, including self-assessments carried out by suppliers to evaluate their own compliance with standards and assessments of labour supply chains to review conditions of recruitment and migration, where those conditions pose risks of, inter alia, debt bondage and forced labour for migrant workers. 54. The consultations also fostered robust dialogue on strategies and engagement aimed at promoting workers’ voices and empowerment within sustainability initiatives, especially within compliance monitoring schemes, including complaints hotlines, the use of worker surveys, good practices in engaging workers during audits, training and capacity-building for workers on their rights and responsibilities in the workplace, and training on workermanagement dialogue in the workplace. However, ensuring that potentially vulnerable workers, such as migrants, young people and women, were not inadvertently excluded from these new strategies was identified as a challenge. 55. Other proposed strategies to strengthen audits, improve measures to detect and provide remedy in trafficking cases, and better implement complementary efforts alongside assessments included increasing community and stakeholder engagement, improving 11