New study reports widespread forced labor abuses

The International Labor Organization reported on Tuesday that forced labor generates $236 billion in illegal profits annually, a sharp increase of $64 billion since 2014.

The study said the increase was due to the growing number of people forced into labor and the correlation between higher levels of exploitation and higher profits. Traffickers and criminals who use forced labor can earn approximately $10,000 per victim.

The study found that the most common use of forced labor was commercial sexual exploitation. Although forced sexual exploitation accounts for 27% of the total number of forced labor victims, it accounts for 73% of total illegal profits. The U.N. labor agency said nearly four-fifths of those victims were girls or women, with children accounting for more than a quarter of the cases.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that approximately 85% of people affected by forced labor engage in “privately imposed forced labour,” including slavery, serfdom, bonded labor and some forms of begging, in which the proceeds benefit someone Something else. The rest is forced labor imposed by government authorities, such as prison labor, which the ILO study did not include due to limited data.

Scott Lyon, senior policy officer at the ILO, said: “The ILO certainly condemns situations of state-forced labor, whether that occurs in the prison system or in abuses of military conscription, or other instances of state and ex post forced labor. form or expression.”

Although the EU Parliament is about to enact rules to combat forced labour, the international community is still far from meeting the UN target of eliminating forced labor by 2030.

Gilbert Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labor Organization, urged international cooperation to address pressing issues.

“People who work forced labor are subject to many forms of coercion, the most common of which is the deliberate and systematic withholding of wages,” he said in a statement. “Forced labor perpetuates cycles of poverty and exploitation and violates human dignity. Core.

“We now know it’s only going to get worse,” Houngbo said.

This report received some information from The Associated Press.