Who’s making money from forced labour?

Forced labour is usually spoken of as a brutal abuse of fundamental human rights. It is less often understood as an economic problem that feeds crime, helps to perpetuate poverty, and damages legitimate businesses.  

A new report from the ILO throws light on this aspect of forced labour. Profits and Poverty: The economics of forced labour, focuses on the private sector profits generated by forced labour. It estimates these illegal profits at 236 billion US dollars, an amount that has increased by more than a third (37 per cent) in the last decade, the result of both a growth in the number of victims of forced labour as well as the increasing profits generated by their exploitation – around 28 million people are estimated to be in forced labour at any one time.

Michaëlle De Cock, head of the research unit of the ILO’s Fundamental Principles Department, and Anousheh Karvar, the French government delegate to the ILO join the podcast to discuss what can be done by governments and businesses to combat this crime.