Forced migration is one of the defining issues of the century. While humanitarian initiatives are multiplying to help integrate refugees into their host societies and facilitate their access to decent employment, our research shows that structural barriers remain numerous. Companies must and can do more.
Forced migration is a growing global challenge, with over 120 million people forcibly displaced as of 2024. While international organizations advocate for economic integration over short-term aid (UNHCR, 2018), cuts in development funding, restrictive migration policies, and political hostility continue to block refugees from formal and decent employment.
Businesses are increasingly called to share responsibility for addressing forced displacement. While many support humanitarian initiatives, their role in long-term economic inclusion remains limited. Global supply chains present both employment opportunities and systemic risks—yet corporate engagement often fails to address the structural barriers that trap refugees in informal, exploitative labour. For example, in Turkey and Pakistan’s garment industries, many refugees work in subcontracted tiers, vulnerable to wage theft, child labour, and hazardous conditions.
This article integrates the business and human rights (BHR) perspective with the canvas ceiling framework (Lee et al., 2019) to examine these challenges. While the canvas ceiling highlights institutional, organizational, and individual barriers to refugee employment, the BHR framework establishes business responsibilities to identify, prevent, and remedy human rights risks in their operations and supply chains.
The Case of Syrian Refugees in Turkey’s Garment Sector
Since 2011, Turkey has hosted an estimated 3.5 million Syrian refugees, many of whom work in the garment industry, Turkey’s second-largest export sector. Under the 2016 EU-Turkey Agreement, Turkey agreed to limit refugee migration to Europe while allowing Syrians access to formal employment through work permits. However, administrative hurdles meant that most Syrians remained in the informal sector, working in unregistered workshops without legal protections.
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At the same time, European fashion brands sourcing from Turkey faced growing scrutiny over labour conditions due to regulations like the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015). Reports from BBC Panorama (2016) and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (2017) revealed widespread child labour, wage theft, and unsafe conditions in the industry.
In response, some brands participated in multi-stakeholder initiatives to promote work permits and training programs (FLA, 2016). Others implemented zero-tolerance policies on child labour and subcontracting, strengthened non-discrimination policies, and hired Arabic-speaking teams to help employers integrate refugees (BHRRC, 2017). However, these actions failed to address the root causes of informal employment. The industry’s dependence on low-cost, flexible labour kept many refugees undocumented and vulnerable. Without changes in business models, purchasing practices, and supplier relationships, these policies had limited long-term impact.
Addressing structural barriers to decent work: The BHR / Canvas Ceiling matrix
The rise of human rights due diligence (HRDD) laws—including the French Duty of Vigilance Law (2017), the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (2023), and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (2024)—has made HRDD a legal obligation rather than a voluntary initiative. However, compliance alone does not prevent human rights harms, as required by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). To effectively address human rights risks, businesses must move beyond risk mapping and reporting to tackling structural barriers to decent work.
The BHR/Canvas Ceiling Matrix provides a structured approach to integrating refugee-specific risks into HRDD processes, identifying how legal, organizational, and individual factors contribute to refugee vulnerability in supply chains.
The canvas ceiling (Lee et al., 2019) builds on the concept of the glass ceiling, but instead of focusing on career advancement for women, it highlights the systemic barriers preventing refugees from securing decent work. These barriers operate at three levels:
- Legal barriers: restrictive work permits, temporary legal status, mobility constraints
- Organizational barriers: purchasing practices prioritizing low costs over fair labour standards, short-term commitment to supplier, unstable employment practices
- Individual barriers: language difficulties, discrimination, economic precarity
These interacting barriers create an exclusionary system, pushing refugees into informal, low-paid, and precarious jobs. The Turkish case demonstrates how such barriers fuel systemic exploitation in low-wage sectors.
The BHR/Canvas Ceiling Matrix strengthens HRDD as follows:
- Remediation strategies – Guides businesses in developing targeted HRDD actions that address root causes of refugee labour precarity, rather than focusing solely on compliance.
- Risk identification – Maps invisible and intersecting barriers that increase refugee vulnerability to labour exploitation.
- Impact assessment – Evaluates how business operations and supply chains contribute to refugee exclusion or protection.
By using this matrix, businesses can shift from a risk-avoidance mindset to a rights-holder-centred approach, ensuring refugees are not only included but have access to dignified, safe, and sustainable employment.
Lessons for refugee employment in Europe
The experience of European brands in Turkey reveals both opportunities and limitations in engaging with refugee labour. While some companies made efforts to integrate Syrian refugees, these were often constrained by: subcontracting to informal workshops to meet high-volume orders, cost pressures and regulatory challenges.
Similar barriers now exist across Europe, where hostile migration policies and legal restrictions make formal refugee employment even more difficult. In many cases, legal barriers to refugee employment in Europe are stricter than in Turkey. Additionally, a political backlash against migrants excludes many refugees from economic participation, even when they qualify for legal employment after prolonged asylum-seeking processes.
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Despite these challenges, businesses can learn from the Turkish case and take concrete steps to promote decent, fair, and safe employment for refugees in their supply chains. By applying the BHR/Canvas Ceiling Matrix, companies can better understand the structural and relational barriers confronting refugees and define their role in ensuring human rights protections. For instance, businesses can:
- Advocate for policy reforms by working with governments and civil society to simplify work permit processes and remove unnecessary employment barriers.
- Strengthen labour protections by reinforcing HRDD mechanisms, collaborating with trade unions, and supporting refugee-led initiatives.
- Reassess hiring practices by implementing non-discriminatory recruitment policies, offering language training, and providing career pathways to integrate refugees into formal work.
Businesses can move beyond risk mitigation and actively contribute to inclusive labour markets that offer stability, dignity, and economic opportunity for refugees (see examples from TENT Foundation). By actively addressing the canvas ceiling, rather than treating HRDD as a compliance exercise, businesses can ensure refugee employment is not only a corporate responsibility but also a sustainable path toward economic and social integration. The question is no longer whether businesses should act—but how quickly they will step up.
