20.9 million victims of Forced Labour. Women and girls represent the greater share of forced labour

[Catherina]

New ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour: 20.9 million victims

Today sees the launch of a new ILO global estimate of forced labour – a shocking 20.9 million women, men and children are trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave. Our estimate captures the full realm of forced labour and human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation, or what some call “modern-day slavery”. The figure means that, at any given point in time, around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are suffering in forced labour.

News item | 01 June 2012


Some highlights of the results:

18.7 million (90%) people are in forced labour in the private economy, exploited by individuals or enterprises. Out of these, 4.5 million (22%) are in forced sexual exploitation, and 14.2 million (68%) in forced labour exploitation in activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work and manufacturing.

Women and girls represent the greater share of forced labour victims – 11.4 million (55%), as compared to 9.5 million (45%) men and boys.

Adults are more affected than children – 74% (15.4 million) of victims fall in the age group of 18 years and above, whereas children are 26% of the total (or 5.5 million child victims).

2.2 million (10%) work in state-imposed forms of forced labour, for example in prisons under conditions which violate ILO standards, or in work imposed by the state military or by rebel armed forces.

...

http://www.ilo.org/sapfl/News/WCMS_182109/lang--en/index.htm

Technical report

Executive summary

Q&A

Global factsheet

[libodem]

1. Thank you

For posting this.

[Catherina]

2. You're welcome. I find their numbers for sexually exploited women very low

When I was brushing up on this for some work we're doing down here, the numbers we found were much higher. I'm in no position to dispute their numbers but I'm not so sure about the methodology they used for this.

The Philippines was estimated to have between 300,000 and a million women in prostitution in http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhvbt.htm

This was in 2010 for just Latin America

Latin America: Five million women victim to human trafficking

One month after the massacre of 72 undocumented migrants in the North East of Mexico, experts and activists at the second Latin American Conference on Smuggling and Trafficking of Human Beings have criticised the lack of attention and action given to the issue by governments. The conference host, David Fernández Dávalos, described human trafficking as a modern, particularly malignant and better disguised version of slavery. According to the Mexican Ministry of Public Security, 250.000 people throughout Latin America become victims of human trafficking every year, but numbers vary.

The Coalition Against Trafficking of Women And Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean estimate that five million women and girls are currently trapped in trafficking networks, with further 10 million in danger of falling victim to them. Even though most Latin American countries have established laws against trafficking, criminal prosecution of perpetrators remains a problem due to both the initial invisibility of the issue and the links to other organised crime such as drug trafficking.

http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/data/files/publications/143/WAN_October.pdf

[MerryBlooms]

3. So troubling and depressing. :*( ty for posting this important OP.

[Catherina]

4. In 2012, slavery alive and well

I can't process this morally.

[MerryBlooms]

5. There are some things our brains just can't wrap themselves around...

the body's self-preservation kicking in.