Forced labor has other causes, such as bonded labor, debt bondage and exploitative labor contracts. The global financial and economic crisis has exposed more and more unemployed persons, especially in developing countries, to the enticement and misery of forced labor. The International Labor Organization (ILO) in its Global Employment Trends update released last week sharply raised its global unemployment projections for 2009, projecting an increase of between 39 and 59 million unemployed persons. Its working poverty projections indicate that 200 million workers could fall into the category of poor in 2009, living on less than $2 per day. This year we will witness the worst global performance on record in employment creation. Moreover, the quality of employment is declining. The ILO raised its projection of the share of vulnerable employment, workers with low incomes, limited labor rights and no social safety nets, to between 49 percent and 53 percent of the global workforce, or between 1.49 billion and 1.6 billion workers.The ILO has led the research in and the fight against forced labor and human trafficking. Three ILO reports have identified the global and regional trends in and estimated the costs of forced labor and trafficking. The first report, titled “Stopping Forced Labor” and published in 2001, emphasized the two common features of different types of forced labor, i.e., the exertion of coercion and the denial of freedom. It posed two questions: What are the major patterns of forced labor? What can be done to prevent and eliminate it? It found that trafficking of women and children, mostly for prostitution and domestic service, had risen sharply in the preceding 10 years.
According to the second report, titled “A Global Alliance against Forced Labor” and published in 2005, despite increased awareness and legal measures in many countries, forced labor was present in one form or another on all continents, in every type of economy and in almost all countries. It observed that as an emotive subject, forced labor was not clearly defined, consistently recognized and forcefully prosecuted as a criminal offence in many countries. It also drew attention to the economic causes of forced labor, such as labor market failures, that needed to be addressed by governments. It offered for the first time some estimates, based on extrapolation from over 5,000 validated cases, of the scope and cost of forced labor. Globally, 12.3 million persons were in forced labor. Most of them, 9.8 million, were in forced labor imposed by private agents, including more than 2.4 million who ended up in forced labor as a result of trafficking. States or rebel military groups were responsible for subjugating 2.5 million persons to forced labor. Among all the regions, Asia had the highest number, 9.4 million, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, 1.3 million. Industrialized countries accounted for at least 360,000. Women and girls formed 56 percent of those in forced labor. The report estimated the annual illicit profits from trafficking at $31.7 billion, of which $21 billion was extracted from the victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.
The ILO's third report, titled “The Cost of Coercion” and published last month, identifies several major global and regional trends: (1) Global awareness of forced labor, slavery and slavery-like practices and human trafficking has increased recently. (2) The concern about trafficking for labor as well as sexual exploitation has generated the major momentum for action. (3) The concern about trafficking has focused on the treatment of migrant workers, especially young women recruited through both official and informal labor market intermediaries for cross-border employment. (4) Many law enforcement agencies, especially in developing countries, are mostly failing to identify and prosecute trafficking cases that result in sexual or labor exploitation. The report also identifies several major regional trends: (1) Asia accounts by far for the largest share of forced labor in the world, attributed to (i) the persistence of bonded labor through which workers lose, through a system of loans or advance payments, their freedom to choose employment; (ii) the trafficking of adults and children for sexual or labor exploitation; and (iii) the continuation of state-imposed forced labor. (2) Latin America accounts for the second-largest global share of forced labor, reflecting the dominance of debt bondage among migrant workers and the discrimination against impoverished indigenous peoples. The US and Canada have tackled trafficking to prevent labor exploitation especially in domestic service and agriculture. (3) Although Africa accounts for the third-highest incidence of forced labor relative to population after Asia and Latin America, it has been the least successful among all regions in fighting it. The historical legacy of slavery, widespread discrimination against ethnic minorities and frequent civil wars are at the root of forced labor and trafficking not only within and throughout Africa but also directed at Europe, the Middle East and North America. (4) In Europe and Central Asia, the concern has shifted from forced labor involving undocumented workers to trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation.
In contrast to the second ILO report, which estimated the illicit profits accruing to human traffickers, this report estimates the financial costs in wage and income losses to those in forced labor. Wage losses are traced primarily to underpayment of wages, in terms of the opportunity cost relative to free employment at market wages. Forced workers can also lose in net wages by not getting paid for overtime and by getting overcharged for food, clothing and shelter. Income losses, mainly by trafficked persons, are traced to recruitment costs, such as fees paid to agents and inflated travel costs. The report's total estimate of $21 billion is the sum of $19.6 billion in unpaid wages to 8.1 million workers in forced labor and $1.4 billion in income lost to 1.1 million trafficked persons. These estimates exclude victims of forced commercial sexual exploitation. Asia and the Pacific region account for most of the people in forced labor and their associated costs. This report, like the previous one, underscores the role of Turkey as a transit as well as a destination country in human trafficking.
Let's hope that the global alliance proposed and the action plan offered at the conclusion of the report to fight the scourge of forced labor and human trafficking will receive the serious attention and required resources of governments everywhere.
