Forced labour estimates

Forced labour estimates

Forced labour, as set out in ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No.29),16 refers to “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. Men, women, and children are forced to work in various settings across the globe, with examples of forced labour found in garment making in South Asian factories, digging for minerals in African mines, harvesting tomatoes on North American farms, working as domestic workers in East Asian homes, working on farms in Latin America, begging in European cities, and constructing high rise buildings in the Gulf States, among other sectors and geographic areas. Regardless of the setting, an identifying feature of situations of forced labour is lack of voluntariness in taking the job or accepting the working conditions, and the application of a penalty or a threat of a penalty to prevent an individual from leaving a situation or otherwise to compel work. Coercion can take many forms, ranging from physical and sexual violence or threats against family members to more subtle means such as withholding of wages, retaining identity documents, threats of dismissal, and threats of denunciation to authorities.

Forced labour: Number and prevalence of persons in forced labour, by category, sex and age

Forced labour Number and prevalence of persons in modern slavery by category sex and age

Sector of forced labour exploitation

Sector of forced labour exploitation

An estimated 16 million people were in forced labour in the private economy in 2016

More women than men are affected by privately imposed forced labour, with 9.2 million (57.6 per cent) female and 6.8 million (42.4 per cent) male. Half of these men and women (51 per cent) were in debt bondage, in which personal debt is used to forcibly obtain labour. This proportion rises above 70 per cent for adults who were forced to work in agriculture, domestic work, or manufacturing.

Among cases where the type of work was known, the largest share of adults who were in forced labour were domestic workers (24 per cent). This was followed by the construction (18 per cent), manufacturing (15 per cent), and agriculture and fishing (11 per cent) sectors.

Most victims of forced labour suffered multiple forms of coercion from employers or recruiters as a way of preventing them from being able to leave the situation. Nearly one-quarter of victims (24 per cent) had their wages withheld or were prevented from leaving by threats of non-payment of due wages. This was followed by threats of violence (17 per cent), acts of physical violence (16 per cent), and threats against family (12 per cent). For women, 7 per cent of victims reported acts of sexual violence.

Forced sexual exploitation of adults and commercial sexual exploitation of children

An estimated 3.8 million adults were victims of forced sexual exploitation and 1.0 million children were victims of commercial sexual exploitation in 2016. The vast majority of victims (99 per cent) were women and girls. More than seven in ten victims were exploited in the Asia and the Pacific region. This was followed by Europe and Central Asia (14 per cent), Africa (8 per cent), the Americas (4 per cent), and the Arab States (1 per cent).

State-imposed forced labour

There were an estimated 4.1 million people in state-imposed forced labour on average in 2016. They included citizens recruited by their state authorities to participate in agriculture or construction work for purposes of economic development, young military conscripts forced to perform work that was not of military nature, those forced to perform communal services that were not decided upon at the community level and do not benefit them, or prisoners forced to work against their will outside] the exceptions established by the ILO supervisory bodies.

An estimated 24.9 million persons were victims of forced labour in 2016

Among the 24.9 million people in any form of forced labour, 16 million were victims of forced labour exploitation in economic activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work, and manufacturing, 4.8 million were victims of forced sexual exploitation, and 4.1 million were victims of forced labour imposed by state authorities.

A significant share of victims of forced labour were exploited outside their country of residence

Almost one of every four victims of forced labour were exploited outside their country of residence. As illustrated in Figure 8, victims of forced sexual exploitation appear most likely to have been exploited outside their country of residence, while, not surprisingly, almost all forced labour imposed by state authorities took place within the borders of their own countries. It should be noted, however, that these differences by typology were driven in part by the differences in the data sources used for measuring them.

The large share of victims exploited outside their country of residence points to the high degree of risk associated with migration in the modern world, particularly for migrant women and children, who are likely to be the most vulnerable.

99% of modern slavery victims were exploited in a country in the same income-based regional grouping as their country of residence

Poverty is often cited as an important risk factor for modern slavery, and relative wealth disparities between countries are often cited as a pull factor. While poverty can drive a decision to migrate for labour, it can also act as a barrier to migration, as members of the poorest groups are of- ten unable to raise the money required to reach their destination, whether through accessing loans in their local communities or from others in the migration industry. But to date there has been limited empirical data providing insight into the connection between income levels and forced labour movements. To explore this issue, the estimates of victims of forced labour were examined according to the income levels of the victims’ country of residence and of the country where the exploitation took place. The results suggest very little movement across income groupings. Ninety-four per cent of victims of forced labour were exploited in a country that was in the same income-based regional grouping as their country of residence. People who were exploited in the low- and lower-middle-income groupings were almost exclusively residents of countries that were in the same income grouping.

Differences by sex in the typology of forced labour exploitation were considerable

Male victims were much more likely than female victims to be in the mining, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture sectors. Nine out of every 10 victims involved in begging were also male. Female victims of forced labour exploitation were much more likely to be in the accommodation and food services industry and in domestic work.

Within each of these broader economic activity areas, forced labour exploitation can take on a number of forms.

They range from the servile practices still found in parts of the world’s poorer countries, often the vestiges of slavery or longstanding practices of ethnic and social discrimination, to the abuses in the supply chains of major modern companies.

Means of coercion

Means of coercion

Most victims suffered multiple forms of coercion from recruiters or employers

In cases of forced labour, it is important to understand the means of coercion at both the recruitment and employment stages. For example, were violence or threats of violence used? How important was the debt factor? Were workers physically prevented from leaving the workplace? And in the case of migrant workers, was the coercion or deception used at the initial place of recruitment, in the country of origin, and/or at the workplace? The ILO has developed indicators on these concerns,29 enabling national statistical offices and research institutes to undertake national surveys on the forced labour of both adults and children.

The Global Estimates have shed significant light on these issues. Withholding of wages, or the threat that this would be done, was the most common means of coercion, experienced by almost a quarter of people (24 per cent) forced to work. This was followed by threats of violence (17 per cent), acts of physical violence (16 per cent), and threats against family (12 per cent). The estimates also confirm that different forms of coercion may be used depending on whether the victim is male or female, a finding that can help inform victim identification and responses. For example, the estimates suggest that male victims were more likely to be subjected to threats against family, withheld wages, confinement, denial of food and sleep, and threats of legal action. In contrast, female victims of forced labour suffered higher rates of sexual violence and were more likely to have their passports withheld.

Debt bondage, through the manipulation of debt by employers or recruiting agents, affected more than half of all victims of forced labour exploitation

Debt bondage is defined for the purpose of the estimates as being forced to work to repay a debt and not being able to leave, or being forced to work and not being able to leave because of a debt. Just over half the men and women in forced labour exploitation worldwide were held in debt bondage. The figure rises to more than 70 per cent of the total for adults forced to work in agriculture, domestic work, or manufacturing.

It is likely that these estimates reflect a mix of cases of both traditional forms of bonded labour and newer forms of debt bondage where recruitment fees and agency charges become the debt that binds.

A regional analysis found that debt bondage was most common in Asia, Africa, and the Arab States, where roughly one-half of all victims of forced labour exploitation were in situations involving debt bondage. In the two remaining regions, the Americas and Europe and Central Asia, a little more than one-third of victims of forced labour exploitation were in debt bondage. In the Arab States, female victims of forced labour exploitation were much more likely than male victims to be in situations involving debt bondage. Eighty-nine per cent of all female victims of forced labour exploitation were held in debt bondage in the region, compared to 45 per cent of all male victims. The opposite pattern prevailed in the Asia and the Pacific and the Europe and Central Asia regions, where debt bondage affected a greater share of male victims of forced labour exploitation than female victims. Similar proportions of men and women were in debt bondage among those forced to work in Africa and the Americas.

IMAGE CREDIT: Mehedi Hasan / NurPhoto


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