The Thomson Reuters Foundation Stop Slavery Award recognises efforts by companies to identify, investigate and eradicate forced labour from their supply chains. Since 2012 Apple says it has reduced the number of underage workers in its extended supply chain, which includes locations where rare earth minerals are mined for use in smartphones. Labour rights groups had previously criticised Apple and its biggest manufacturing partner Foxconn for excessive overtime, hiring underage workers and failing to provide health insurance. Apple said it has also returned over $30 million to 35,000 foreign contract workers who were coerced by unscrupulous recruiters to pay excessive fees to be employed by the company. "As a company whose work touches the lives of so many people, we feel we have an enormous responsibility ... to turn our values into action," Angela Ahrendts, head of retail at Apple, said during Trust Conference in London on Wednesday, which is hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Though we've only just started, we see a tremendous opportunity to be a beacon of hope for trafficking survivors by integrating them into our worldwide retail teams," she said, receiving the prize designed by British sculptor Anish Kapoor.

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