ELLEN WULFHORST, of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on a landmark collaboration…
More than 40 million people were trapped as slaves last year in forced labour and forced marriages, according to the first joint effort by key anti-slavery groups to estimate the number of victims worldwide of the international crime.
The International Labour Organization (ILO), human rights group Walk Free Foundation, and International Organization for Migration said 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery in 2016 – but added this was a conservative estimate.
TRAPPED: More than 40 million people were trapped in slavery last year, according to the new data. PICTURE: Tertia van Rensburg/Unsplash
KEY FINDINGS:
• Nearly 25 million people last year were trapped working in factories, on construction sites, farms, fishing boats and mines, and as domestic or sex workers.
• Of these victims, 16 million were forced to work in the private economy, 4.8 million were sexually exploited, and 4.1 million were subjected to state-imposed forced labour.
• At least 15.4 million people were in marriages to which they had not consented – with many victims losing their sexual freedom and forced to work under the guise of marriage.
• More than seven in 10 of the people living as slaves last year were women and girls, and one in four was a child.
• Modern slavery was most prevalent in Africa (7.6 per 1,000 people), followed by Asia and the Pacific (6.1 per 1,000) then Europe and Central Asia (3.9 per 1,000).
• On average, there were 5.9 adult victims of modern slavery in 2016 for every 1,000 adults in the world, and 4.4 childvictims for every 1,000 children.
• In the past five years, 89 million people worldwide have been subjected to some form of modern slavery – for periods of time ranging from a few days to the whole five years.
– compiled by KIERAN GUILBERT
They estimated 24.9 million people were trapped working in factories, on construction sites, farms and fishing boats, and as domestic or sex workers, while 15.4 million people were in marriages to which they had not consented.
Almost three out of every four slaves were women and girls and one in four was a child, with modern slavery most prevalent in Africa followed by Asia and Pacific, said the report.
“Forced labourers produced some of the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and they have cleaned the buildings in which many of us live or work,” the groups said in a report released on Tuesday, stressing the crime was prevalent in all nations.
The findings mark the first time the groups collaborated on an international estimate and prompted calls for stronger labour rights, improved governance of migrants, action to address root causes of debt bondage, and better victim identification.
“Given that a large share of modern slavery can be traced to migration, improved migration governance is vitally important to preventing forced labour and protecting victims,” they said.
Previously the groups had used different data, definitions and methodologies, said Houtan Homayounpour, a specialist on forced labour at the ILO, the United Nations’ labour agency.
“There’s been many different numbers out there for many years. Now finally everyone has come together and has worked on developing one global estimate that becomes a reference point,” Mr Homayounpour told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The estimate compared with a 2016 Walk Free finding that 45.8 million people were slaves and an ILO figure of 21 million in forced labour, but Mr Homayounpour cautioned the numbers cannot be used to show progress or failure in anti-slavery efforts.
Fiona David, executive director of global research at Australia-based Walk Free, said the estimated number of victims contrasted sharply with a mere “tens of thousands” of slavery cases that have gone before authorities.
“That’s an enormous gap that we have to close,” she said.
She said unlike previous estimates, the findings included people forced into marriages, many of whom were taken from their homes, raped, and treated like property that could sometimes be bought, sold or passed on as inheritance.
The report found more than a third of the 15 million victims of forced marriage were aged under 18 when wed, and nearly half of those were younger than 15. Nearly all were female.
“Really the label marriage is actually a little bit misleading. When you look at what’s behind it, it could also be called sexual slavery,” she said.
The ILO also released a separate report showing 152 million children were victims of child labour, which amounted to nearly one in every 10 child worldwide, with almost half of those engaged in hazardous work.
More than two-thirds of these children were working on a family farm or in a family business, with 71 per cent overall working in agriculture.
The calculation of forced labour included the private economy, forced sexual exploitation and state-imposed labour.
Half of forced labourers were victims of debt bondage, who were made to work to repay a debt or other obligation, and nearly four million adults and one million children were victims of forced sexual exploitation.
“The vast majority of forced labour today exists in the private economy. This underscores the importance of partnering with the business community…to eradicate forced labour in supply chains,” the report said.
The ILO and Walk Free conducted surveys in 48 countries and interviewed more than 71,000 people with findings supplemented by data from the International Organization for Migration.
Meanwhile, a companion report released by the ILO showed that more than 150 million children, or nearly one in 10 globally, are victims of forced labour and progress in reducing that number has slowed.
Nearly half of children in forced labour do hazardous work and more than a third do not go to school, said the report, adding that although the number of child labourers has fallen by 94 million since 2000, the decline slowed from 2012 to 2016.
The faltering progress imperils efforts to end child labour by 2025 as laid out in the United Nations’ latest set of global goals agreed in 2015 to tackle poverty and inequality.
“We need to pick up the pace.”
– Houtan Homayounpour, a specialist on forced labour at the ILO, the United Nations’ labour agency, speaking about global action to address child labour.
Mr Homayounpour said the world was not on track to end child labour in eight years with estimates that 121 million children would still be in child labour in 2025 at this rate.
“We need to pick up the pace,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A total of 152 million children – 64 million girls and 88 million boys – are victims of child labour, according to the latest ILO estimate.
More than two-thirds of these children are working on a family farm or in a family business with 71 per cent overall employed in agriculture.
Nine out of every 10 live in Africa and the Asia and Pacific region, the ILO said, with sub-Saharan Africa experiencing a rise in child labour from 2012 to 2016.
“Africa, where child labour is highest in both proportionate and absolute terms, and where progress has stalled, remains a particular priority,” the ILO said in its report.
The report noted a strong link between child labour and conflict and disaster which caused joblessness and displacement that make children vulnerable.
Among children in forced labour between ages five and 14, a third, or 36 million, do not go to school.
The ILO said its findings came from surveying households in all regions of the world and using data from the UN and world governments.
