Slavery and related practices
such as forced labour, trafficking in persons and servitude are defined in
different international conventions. Yet national estimates on forced labour
hardly exist and the lack of reliable data makes it very difficult to monitor
trends, to develop effective policies and to identify victims.
Through my work at the ILO I have asked myself why
it is that we have data on so many global ills but not on slavery – one of the
worst human rights abuses we are
faced with today.
At the root is a lack of
awareness – or a refusal to acknowledge – that slavery or forced labour still
exists under many different disguises. The way people are coerced into work
today is very different from the slave trade of 200 years ago. It is often invisible
and subtle. Workers themselves often don't realise that what they have to
endure is unacceptable and violates their basic rights. And even if they do,
they have no voice. Where there is no voice, there is no or limited political
support.
Do we in the anti-slavery
movement have the potential to challenge this status quo?
The movement is currently made up
of a plethora of old and new organisations, both at international and national
levels.
Given the historic evolution of international law,
various UN agencies have a specific mandate to address slavery, forced labour
or human trafficking.
But collaboration between these agencies is hampered by diverging views on how
best to combat slavery.
Much of the attention has focused
on trafficking in persons in recent years, without addressing the broader
dimensions of labour exploitation and coercion as well as their root causes.
This has often led to a piecemeal approach where one set of measures is
privileged over another. There is broad consensus among experts that prevention
measures should receive greater attention, but there is less agreement on what
these measures should entail.
There are also competing agendas
among civil society organisations. The collective voice of workers is
potentially very powerful and trade unions have become more prominently
involved in the struggle against forced labour, including the International
Trade Union Confederation. But many of these initiatives and organisations
operate on a shoestring budget.
Yet despite these challenges,
there are reasons to be positive. On a global scale dramatic changes have
occurred within the last decade. Brazil's government was one of the first to
publically denounce slave labour in 1995. In 2011, EU member states adopted new
legislation that guarantees greater rights for trafficked victims; an issue
that had been fiercely contested in previous years.
Last year, the government of
Burma, which had been sanctioned and isolated internationally for its use of
forced labour, signed an agreement with the ILO to stop all forms of forced
labour by 2015.
In the Middle East, some
governments are now publicly discussing alternatives to the "kafeel system",
which ties migrant workers to their "sponsors" and accords
disproportionate power to employers.
Business and employers
organisations are also becoming more aware of the issue. The California
Transparency in Supply Chain Act, which took effect in January 2012, requires
companies to disclose information with regards to human trafficking. It has
sparked a lot of debate within the business community. In 2010, the
International Organisation of Employers issued a paper that highlighted the
risks of forced labour and called on employers to take action.
But it is not enough to call for
an end of these intolerable forms of exploitation; we also need to think of how
to do it.
We still know very little about
the long-term impact of anti-forced labour initiatives. There is a need to
critically assess what has been achieved so far through measures that have
largely focused on criminalisation and prosecution.
So far the results of this
strategy have been disappointing. Every year, we record just a few thousand prosecuted
cases. Millions of victims remain unidentified and continue toiling away in
private homes, on plantations, fishing boats, or in illegal sweatshops.
Thousands of women and girls are forced into prostitution every day, and many
victims who have been rescued end up in a similar situation shortly after. We
therefore need a paradigmatic shift in thinking: criminal law enforcement needs
to be much better integrated with long-term prevention and empowerment
strategies.
There are some inspiring examples
of best practice to be found in the sector. On a recent trip to Cuiabá, Brazil,
I visited a major construction site where a new stadium was being built for the
2014 World Cup. There I learnt about a new initiative to prevent modern forms
of slavery. It combined interventions and quality vocational training to
workers who have fallen prey to or are vulnerable to exploitative forms of
labour with heavy fines for unscrupulous employers, a partnership with local
businesses that forms the financial and economic backbone of the project and
strong leadership from the ministry of labour and, against all the odds, a
non-corruptible labour prosecutor.
When I returned from Brazil, I
couldn't stop thinking that what had happened in Cuiabá should be possible
elsewhere too. It's important to share the lessons learned from these
initiatives and to remind governments of their obligation to invest in the
long-term prevention of forced labour.
With the right strategy in place,
preventive measures are more cost-effective than curing symptoms. And the hope
they bring to workers like the one I met in Cuiabá values more than money. We
must all now seize the opportunity to make this potential into a reality for
millions around the world.
Beate Andrews is head of the Special Action
Programme to combat Forced Labour at the International Labour
Organisation