Staff Reporter:
Forced labor in the private economy generates US$236 billion in illegal profits per year, a new re-port from the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed.
The total amount of illegal profits from forced labor has risen by US$64 billion (37 per cent) since 2014, a dramatic increase that has been fuelled by both a growth in the number of people forced into labor, as well as higher profits generated from the exploitation of victims.
The ILO report, Profits and Poverty: the economics of forced labor, estimates that traffickers and criminals are generating close to US$10,000 per victim, up from US$8,269 (adjusted for inflation) a decade ago.
Total annual illegal profits from forced labor are highest in Europe and Central Asia (US$84 bil-lion), followed by Asia and the Pacific (US$62 billion), the Americas (US$52 billion), Africa (US$20 billion), and the Arab States (US$18 billion).
When illegal profits are expressed per victim, annual illegal profits are highest in Europe and Cen-tral Asia, followed by the Arab States, the Americas, Africa and Asia and the Pacific.
Forced commercial sexual exploitation accounts show more than two-thirds (73 per cent) of the total illegal profits, despite accounting for only 27 per cent of the total number of victims in pri-vately imposed labor.
These numbers are explained by the huge difference in per victim profits between forced commer-cial sexual exploitation and other forms of non-state forced labor exploitation – US$27,252 profits per victim for the former against US$3,687 profits per victim for the latter.
After forced commercial sexual exploitation, the sector with the highest annual illegal profits from forced labor is industry, at US$35 billion, followed by services (US$20.8 billion), agriculture (US$5.0 billion), and domestic work (US$2.6 billion).
These illegal profits are the wages that rightfully belong in the pockets of workers but instead re-main in the hands of their exploiters, as a result of their coercive practices.
There were 27.6 million people engaged in forced labor on any given day in 2021.
This figure translates to 3.5 people for every thousand people in the world. Between 2016 and 2021 the number of people in forced labor increased by 2.7 million.
“People in forced labor are subject to multiple forms of coercion, the deliberate and systematic withholding of wages being amongst the most common. Forced labor perpetuates cycles of poverty and exploitation and strikes at the heart of human dignity. We now know that the situation has only got worse. The international community must urgently come together to take action to end this injustice, safeguard workers’ rights, and uphold the principles of fairness and equality for all,” stated ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo.
The report stresses the urgent need for investment in enforcement measures to stem illegal profit flows and hold perpetrators accountable.
It recommends strengthening legal frameworks, providing training for enforcement officials ex-tending labor inspection into high-risk sectors, and better coordination between labor and criminal law enforcement.
Yet forced labor cannot be ended through law enforcement measures alone, enforcement actions must be part of a comprehensive approach that prioritizes addressing root causes and safeguarding victims, underlines the report released from Geneva.
The Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labor Convention, 1930, and the Forced Labor (Supplementary Measures) Recommendation, 2014 (No. 203) provide a strategic framework for comprehensive ac-tion.
