“doTERRA’s mission is to help the world heal,” proclaims the essential oil distributor’s website. But doTERRA has done far more harm than healing to the women who harvest and process their frankincense in the eastern African region of Somaliland. In the two years since these abuses came to light, the company has not followed through on any commitments to help heal from the years of forced labor, sexual assault, sex trafficking, wage theft, unsafe working conditions, environmental damage, and systemic exploitation that these communities endured.

doTERRA has built its business as a brand that speaks of women’s health and empowerment–now it’s high time that doTERRA make good on its promises and heal the communities they have harmed.

These human rights abuses were so extreme that in November 2024, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency banned products from doTERRA’s main business partner in the region, Asli Maydi, from entering the country. doTERRA has built its business as a brand that speaks of women’s health and empowerment–now it’s high time that doTERRA make good on its promises and heal the communities they have harmed.

Sourcing Frankincense in the Horn of Africa

Frankincense grows in just a few regions around the world. On the eastern Horn of Africa, frankincense trees grow across the arid landscape and are wild-harvested. The harvest is often a family affair, with men extracting the resin from the tree trunks, and women working to clean and sort the resin. The communities where frankincense grows are very poor, following decades of colonialism, extraction, war, and under-investment. And, while the resin is quite valuable, the communities are quite remote, meaning that harvesting communities rely on middlemen to get their crops to market.

In 2015, doTERRA selected the newly-formed firm Asli Maydi as their sourcing partner, to act as the middleman who would buy the frankincense from the communities, run the sorting facilities, and ship it out of the country to be turned into oil. What Price for the King of Oils? Exploitation and Abuse in doTERRA’s Frankincense Supply Chain, a report published by Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) and the Horn of Africa Charity Organisation (HOACO), details the case made for the import ban on Asli Maydi. This report details doTERRA’s failures to properly vet its supply chain partners, or to respond as complaints about Asli Maydi founder Barkhad Hassan mounted.

Unsafe Working Conditions Sicken Women Sorting doTERRA’s Frankincense

CAL’s report details how Asli Maydi founder Barkhad Hassan consolidated power, using violence and intimidation to prevent frankincense collectors from selling to other middlemen and eventually dominating the market through bribery (a scheme apparently at least one doTERRA executive knew of). Having dominated the market, Asli Maydi proceeded to exploit, abuse, and terrorize the community. 

Backed by doTERRA, Asli Maydi enticed workers with promises of good jobs, a scarce thing in the region. In a promotional video, doTERRA’s head of sourcing Matthew Reid claimed,

“We’re now employing thousands of women, who are cleaning the resins. We’re making sure they have safe conditions and also are getting paid well. This organization has done a lot of things, not only to improve the supply chain, but to provide much more security and employment and fairness for more of the actors in the business.” 

But the promise was far from the reality. 

Instead, women told an investigative reporter with the Fuller Project and The Guardian that they worked nine to 12 hours per day, six days a week, sorting frankincense for doTERRA’s supplier. They were promised a fair wage, food, and money to cover their children’s school fees. Instead, they were paid approximately $1.00 per day, if they got paid at all – even as doTERRA’s supplier boasted in a CNN documentary that the women earned between $300-500 per month. That calculation ($10-16.67 per day) is much closer to a living income, per the Fuller Project story.

One woman told the Fuller Project of the appalling conditions:

“…[T]he warehouse had no toilets or running water. She says women developed kidney complications and urinary tract infections from being unable to go to the bathroom. The women also say they weren’t given breaks and had to ask to use the restrooms in neighboring houses.” 

Multiple investigations have confirmed how bad the working conditions were, with a lack of protective gear causing women to develop “asthma and other breathing difficulties as well as blindness, kidney infections, urinary tract infections, and chronic back, knee, and hand pain.”

As appalling as the working conditions were, it was just the start of the abuses women suffered at the hands of doTERRA’s supplier.

doTERRA’s Supplier Linked to Sex Trafficking even as doTERRA Claims to Empower Women

(Note that this section contains descriptions of sexual violence.) Even as doTERRA promises to empower women, in Somaliland, doTERRA’s supplier used gender-based violence as a tool to exploit women and intimidate them into keeping quiet about the crimes. According to multiple sources, Hassan and Asli Maydi employees sexually assaulted, raped, and exploited approximately 200 local women and girls. The allegations of systematic abuse amount to an organized sex trafficking scheme. 

The allegations of systematic abuse amount to an organized sex trafficking scheme. 

Women described being driven to remote locations, lured by promises of good jobs. Instead, they were brought to “parties” where they were given beverages laced with drugs or alcohol. Many report being groped by men, including Asli Maydi employees, and even raped. At least one woman reported losing consciousness after consuming the beverages. Others report being held captive and raped repeatedly. After one such assault on a group of teenagers, an Asli Maydi employee brandished a pistol promising, “this [pistol] will make holes in your head” if the young girls spoke of the incident. 

In 2022, doTERRA opened the Sanaag Specialty Hospital with money raised from the wellness advocates who sell doTERRA oils. Company executives told their mostly female customers it was an example of women helping women: a hospital that employed over 60% women helping to transform care for pregnant women in a region without medical care. But the marketing was far from reality. Women and girls who came to interview for jobs as hospital cleaners were taken to Hassan’s villa behind the hospital. There, “the women and girls were told to strip and pose naked for photographs and videos and were offered U.S. visas for doing so,” multiple sources told CAL and HOACO. Similar events were chronicled by the Fuller Project, suggesting a pattern of exploitation. 

doTERRA Admits Harm, Fails to Heal

Over the years, doTERRA was notified about the patterns of abuse and exploitation, but failed to respond adequately. After the Fuller Project and the Guardian published the results of their investigation, doTERRA commissioned an investigation of its own. The investigation notes that both the investigative team and cooperating witnesses were threatened, including extortion, bribery, intimidation, death threats, and physical violence. These threats worsened when doTERRA’s investigative team failed to protect the women’s confidentiality, leading to the women receiving threats from representatives of doTERRA’s supplier, Asli Maydi. There is no way that the results of an investigation conducted under such circumstances could be considered reliable or credible, especially considering the sensitive nature of some of the harms, including gender-based violence.

Speaking at doTERRA’s annual convention of wellness advocates in September 2024, doTERRA president Emily Wright admitted “there was no clear evidence that that money made it all the way to the harvesters and sorters in the way that it was reported to us.” Yet so far, there is no evidence that doTERRA has provided remedy for the stolen pay, or any of the other egregious harms done to the frankincense-gathering communities of Somaliland. 

doTERRA cut contracts with Asli Maydi in 2023 and was blocked from importing additional frankincense from the company in 2024 when CBP found credible evidence of forced labor and other abuses. But so far, doTERRA has done nothing to help the communities heal.

It’s High Time doTERRA Fulfills its Commitment to Women, Frankincense-Gathering Communities

In that same speech, Wright promised, “We have…years worth of resin from Somaliland that will give us time to find the best way forwards with pure intentions leading us on…I want you to know this is not the end. We pulled out of the Sanaag region temporarily but we are not giving up…We do not walk away from hard things.” So far, however, it appears that doTERRA has walked away from the women of Somaliland. And instead of engaging responsibly and healing the harms done by their suppliers, doTERRA has provided empty statements and hidden behind marketing fluff and flawed “investigations.” 

So far, however, it appears that doTERRA has walked away from the women of Somaliland. And instead of engaging responsibly and healing the harms done by their suppliers, doTERRA has provided empty statements and hidden behind marketing fluff and flawed “investigations.” 

Now is the time for doTERRA to keep its word and provide meaningful remedy to the thousands of women and their families and communities who have been harmed by their actions. The report by CAL and HOACO provides a detailed list of demands to adequately address the violations which are so numerous they are not even summarized in full here. 

doTERRA’s next convention happens in just a few short weeks. It’s been a year since Emily Wright stood on stage before doTERRA sellers and promised “not to walk away from hard things.” It’s high time doTERRA pay the remediation required and help the frankincense-gathering communities of Somaliland heal.