According to a report by the International Labor Organization, ILO, the number of people who are subjected to forced labor and marriage amounts to 50 million today. The UN body stresses that the problem is concentrated mainly in high and upper-middle income countries.
Some 50 million people in the world have been subjected to some type of modern slavery, according to reports from the International Labor Organization, ILO, a member agency of the United Nations.
The report, which was carried out in association with the Walk Free Foundation, indicates that at the end of 2021 some 28 million people were performing forced labor and another 22 million had been forced to marry outside their consent.
For the director general of the ILO, Guy Ryder, “this represents a significant increase in the figures since the latest estimates”, published in 2017. The manager pointed out that there are 2.7 million more forced workers and another 6.6 million more of people in forced marriage. “The bad news is that we are going in the wrong direction,” he said.
The pandemic as a catalyst for forced labor around the world
What the organization’s figures indicate is that one person in every 150 million faces modern slavery, worldwide. An index that goes against the objectives of the UN, which intended to end this problem by 2030.
The pandemic has been one of the elements that has exacerbated the situation the most, since, in the absence of being able to work or seeing their economic sources blocked, millions of people were forced to increase their debt and accept jobs that use illegal practices.
In addition, armed conflicts and climate change increase the risk that people end up in that condition. “An unprecedented disruption of employment and education, the increase in extreme poverty and forced and insecure migration” are the ingredients for people to end up working in a forced way, indicates the entity.
For Ryder, “anyone who is in a situation of economic and social vulnerability is at greater risk of forced labor than others.” And she highlights the example of migrant workers, “who are three times more likely to find themselves in situations of forced labor than others.”
The sectors most prone to exploitation are, according to the UN, services, the manufacturing industry, construction, agriculture, domestic work, those forced to beg on the streets and those forced to work in illicit activities.
The ILO also points out that there are States that force their citizens to work forcibly, as in the case of prisons, abusive military recruitment or those who are forced to work “to promote the economic development” of the country or a community, as some political speeches promote.
According to the ILO, forced labor occurs mainly in upper-middle and high-income countries and not only in poor countries, as is often thought. “To the surprise of many, in countries with higher incomes there is also forced labor, and sexual exploitation is also an important part. So it is a very complex and very varied problem,” said the ILO director.
China and Qatar, in the crosshairs
As for China, the UN Organization said that just at the beginning of this year the country had ratified the Convention on Forced Labor, so it is expected to start reporting on the critical situation of the Muslim minority of the Uyghurs, which, According to a report by the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, upon leaving office, China would be subjecting them, among other situations, to forced labor in the province of Xinjiang. This report also pointed to actions that could constitute crimes against humanity.
Xi Jinping’s government has always rejected these claims and alleges that the camps where the Uyghurs are kept are places of vocational training that help eradicate extremism.
For Bachelet, these work plans to which these Muslims are subjected are discriminatory and may “involve elements of coercion.”
In the ILO report, the case of Qatar was also mentioned, where there are accusations of violation of the rights of migrants who work in the preparations for the soccer World Cup, which will take place in November.
forced marriages
According to the ILO, forced marriages, unlike forced labour, can be “a life sentence”, as it is a long-term problem.
The number of women and girls – the most vulnerable to this situation – forced to marry increased by 6.6 million, according to the entity’s 2016 estimates. In addition, the report adds that people who experience forced labor and forced marriages are typically “unable to refuse or leave due to threats, violence, deception, abuse of power or other forms of coercion.”
According to the ILO, the regions where there are more forced marriages, where girls under 16 are involved, are Asia and the Pacific.
To try to solve the problem of forced labor and marriage, the UN agency proposes, among other recommendations, “to improve and enforce labor laws and inspections, put an end to forced labor imposed by the State, expand social protection and strengthen legal protections, including raising the legal age of marriage to 18 without exception.
With Reuters, AFP and EFE
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