Federico BlancoSenior Research Fellow, Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Service The International Labour Organization (ILO), published in ‘Aristegui Live‘some of the most important findings from the recently published report ‘Profit and Poverty: Economic Aspects of Forced Labor» from the ILO, which highlights the alarming figure $236 billion How illegal profit on average left every year forced labor.

“This is an astronomical figure, which in translation means average profit per victim is about 10 thousand dollars“, emphasized Blanco, who argued that this increase in profits lies “at the heart of the existence of forced labor” and is the main reason why Criminal organizations They continue to resort to this type of exploitation that violates human rights because these numbers are only a reflection of deeper problems such as wages and resources that lead to human lives “stolen” from workerscreating individual, family and community effects.

For governments, these profits represent lost taxes, influencing development policies in many countries, including those needed to eradicate forced labor. […] They also strengthen criminal networks, encourage corruption and compromise law enforcement.

Regarding conducting research to achieve these results, he added that forced labor estimates published in 2021, on which the information retrieval methodology is based, reflect that this is a problem existing in all regions of the worldand his main discovery is quantification of benefits illegal what it produces.

“A similar report was already prepared in 2014, and a decade later we found that Profit increased by $64 billion. “37% increase compared to 2014,” he emphasized, while listing two factors that contributed to this growing trend:

1. He number of victims in the private economy it increased by 27%, from 12.7 million to 23.6 million.
2. stolen or extracted profits per victim increased by 21%.

According to global distribution shared that profits are mainly recorded in Europe and Central Asia with 84 billion, followed by Asia Pacific with 62 billion, America with 52 billion and finally Africa and Arab countries.

Regarding the sectors where forced labor is most common, Blanco regretted that, although victims of forced commercial sexual exploitation They account for only 27% of all victims of forced labor. 73% of this illegal income; $173 billion annuallywhich is a “staggering and alarming result since 73% of these profits are generated through the sexual exploitation of large numbers of people, mostly women and girls.”

Population migrant this is another one of main victims found in this type of exploitation, since they take advantage of their position to collect recruitment fees that they have to pay, which is equivalent to 15% of all illegal income derived from forced labor among international migrants, therefore this sector of the population should represent a priority in the design of a specific government politicians.

He Homework This is another highly vulnerable sector that Blanco pointed out, as it is often isolated from the attention of labor inspectors and “forced labor crimes are committed in the home,” which usually go unnoticed by society and are ignored by the law and government.

“The message of the report is clear: We need to enforce the law to stop profits from forced labor in the bud. They are the ones who help strengthen the criminal networks involved in this. On the other hand, they should address root causes why victims are vulnerable. “Having reliable information, good recruitment services, being able to make complaints to the authorities, having timely protection and assistance to avoid falling into these extreme forms of exploitation that are becoming more common and widespread,” was his response when asked about about what can be done. to reduce the alarming numbers.

Candle full interview Here: