Register for the third webinar in our series, Healing for Whom? Addressing Human Trafficking in Essential Oil Brand doTERRA’s Frankincense Supply Chain, on September 16th at 1:00pm ET.

“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. 

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. But so far, thousands of women, their families, and communities are waiting for doTERRA to make good on their promises and heal the communities they have harmed. 

In the next installment of our Corporate Accountability in Uncertain Times series, we’ll hear from speakers who have firsthand experience of the conditions in frankincense-growing communities, as well as legal advocates using unique strategies to hold corporations to international standards. 

We hope you can join us to explore the distinctive human rights challenges of the region, community-driven initiatives, and the path to remedying doTERRA’s harms.

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In 2025, holding corporations accountable is more urgent than ever, as global companies operate with increasing impunity. Shifting political landscapes and weakened regulatory systems have put worker protections at risk, making it harder than ever to uphold fundamental human rights like the freedom to organize. This year, we launched a new webinar series, Corporate Accountability in Uncertain Times, to examine how global corporations and the social auditing firms meant to oversee them are exploiting today’s instability to silence workers, evade responsibility, and roll back hard-won protections.

You can see the recording from our first conversation in the series, Unraveled Commitments: The Global Impact of Fruit of the Loom’s Unionized Factory Shutdowns below. It’s also available in Spanish here.

In early 2025, Fruit of the Loom announced the closure of its last two unionized garment factories in Honduras: Jerzees Nuevo Día and Confecciones Dos Caminos. These closures have displaced over 3,000 workers and marked a stark reversal from the company’s 2009 commitment to respect labor rights in the region. That commitment came in response to global pressure – led by Honduran workers, international advocates, and student movements – which had forced the company to reopen a previously shuttered union factory and take concrete steps toward ensuring the right to organize.

Now, those promises have unraveled.

This webinar explores the long arc of labor organizing within Fruit of the Loom’s Honduran operations, the international solidarity that shaped the company’s commitments, and the profound implications of these latest factory closures.

The second webinar in our series, Checking Boxes, Cheating Workers: How Social Audit Firms are Complicit in Labor Rights Abuses, is viewable below.

This webinar accompaiened the launch of our report by the same name. The report examines the role of social auditing firms in supply chain regulation through three case studies. These case studies build on existing research to show how social audit firms are not just failing to discover abuses but actively undermining workers’ rights and co-signing corporations’ attempts to skirt responsibility.