50m trapped in modern slavery across world

KARACHI: Pakistan is among the countries which have imposed compulsory labour as a means of racial or religious discrimination.

This has been noted by the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) -- the ILO’s independent committee -- in a newly released report published by the ILO, WalkFree and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The report has come up with damning news: 50 million people are trapped in modern slavery across the world.

The report -- released on Monday (Sept 12) -- is based on 68 forced labour and 75 forced marriage surveys, carried out in 180 countries. One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to eliminate modern slavery by 2030. However, the report has concluded that between 2016 and 2021, 10 million more people have been added to the list of people stuck in bonded labour and forced marriage. Migrant workers are more susceptible to getting caught in forced labour than other workers.

The report has blamed factors like the climate crisis, armed conflicts and the Covid-19 pandemic as major disruptors that have reversed the achievements the world made over the years. The report has recognised women and children to be the most vulnerable. Children make up 22 percent of the total population in forced labour – this number is subject to data restriction and may ‘well be just the tip of the iceberg’. Half of these children are employed in commercial sexual exploitation. Other economic sectors and industries that employ children are domestic work, agriculture and manufacturing, among others. These children also face the worst form of abuse and coercion including abduction, drugging, being held in captivity, deception, and manipulation of debt. Statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime show that “children account for one in every three detected victims of trafficking worldwide”. Scheduled caste and tribal children in South Asia are trafficked to distant cities to work in the manufacturing sector.

In Latin America, migrant and indigenous children are forced to work as domestic servants. The IOM has found out that an organised network in Bangladesh is involved in trafficking of Rohingya children out of refugee camps for domestic work. Children who are trying to flee war-zone Ukraine are also a special target of child traffickers. The report has pointed out that the “tragedy of children subjected to forced labour demands special urgency.

”Women, too, are at great risk of exploitation. Women in forced labour in the private economy are more likely to be in domestic work, and they are coerced through abuse of vulnerability and wage non-payment; they also face physical and sexual violence.

The threat of forced marriage too looms large in women’s lives. The report says that the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the number of forced marriages as a ban in large gatherings allowed parents to spend a small amount of money on marriages. This is particularly true for India and Sudan where Covid-19-induced restrictions opened up opportunities for child and forced marriages.

The report has called for strict measures including extending social protection, and strengthening legal protections; ending state-imposed forced labour; improving and enforcing laws and labour inspections.

“It is shocking that the situation of modern slavery is not improving. Nothing can justify the persistence of this fundamental abuse of human rights,” says the ILO’s director general, Guy Ryder while Grace Forrest, founding director of Walk Free, says, “Modern slavery is the antithesis of sustainable development. Yet, in 2022, it continues to underpin our global economy.”