2021: 27.6 million
2016: 24.9 million
2011: 20.9 million
A grim series of statistics, drawn from last week’s International Labour Organization report on worldwide forced labor in 2021:
“49.6 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, of which 27.6 million were in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriage. Of the 27.6 million people in forced labour, 17.3 million are exploited in the private sector; 6.3 million in forced commercial sexual exploitation, and 3.9 million in forced labour imposed by states.”
The 27.6 million total — up by 2.7 million from the 24.9 million estimated in the ILO’s 2017 report — combines several different conditions under the broad term “forced labor.” The most common of these, found in 36% of cases, involves workers trapped in jobs by withholding of pay; others involve debt bondage, entrapment of migrant workers, threats of violence by criminal enterprises, and in 1% of cases, chattel slavery. Reacting to this report, the U.S., European Union, and Japanese Trade and Labor ministers express joint commitment “to eradicating all forms of forced labour, including state-sponsored forced labour, from our rules-based multilateral trading system, and resolve to strengthen national and international efforts to meet this commitment.”
How exactly would they do this? Perhaps more fundamentally, would “removing forced labor products from international trade flows” also eliminate forced labor as such, or simply shift the destination of the products? In thinking through these questions, it might be useful to look at a recent example of large-scale success: the elimination of a state-run program of seasonal forced labor in cotton harvesting in Uzbekistan. Some background and tentative conclusions:
Background: Largest of the Central Asian republics at 34 million people, Uzbekistan is the world’s sixth-largest cotton producer, harvesting about 3 million tons per year in a global total usually around 25 million tons. Having served in the Soviet era as the provider of cotton for Russia-based textile mills, as an independent country since 1991 Uzbekistan now grows cotton both for local factories and for exports to clothing-producers elsewhere in the world.
According to a series of ILO surveys begun in 2016, about 2.8 million people worked in Uzbekistan’s annual autumn cotton harvest in the early 2010s. Roughly 14% of these harvesters — almost 400,000 people – were forced laborers required by local governments to leave school or jobs for unpaid fieldwork during harvest season until regional harvest quotas were filled. The 2016 survey reported that those “most ‘at risk’ of forced labour were medical and education staff, people employed elsewhere, and university/college students.” Five years later, the January 2021 report declared that “systemic forced labour and child labour has come to an end in Uzbekistan,” and the March 2022 report found no return.
Eliminating this system appears to have involved at least three factors:
(a) A large and sustained international activist effort through the “Cotton Campaign” involving businesses, labor unions, and human rights groups, which provided information on forced labor practices in the cotton harvest and pressured textile and apparel industry buyers worldwide not to use Uzbek cotton.
(b) International government pressures, in the U.S. case including human rights reports published by the State and Labor Departments, and a ‘review’ of the tariff waivers Uzbekistan received through the Generalized System of Preferences entailing possible revocation.
(c) Contingent factors, in particular the death in office of post-Soviet leader Islam Karimov and his replacement by a new leader, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, whose government hoped to avoid the reputational and potential economic damage associated with forced labor and was willing to put sustained effort, with ILO advice and monitoring, into reshaping the cotton industry.
Tentative conclusions: In drawing lessons from this experience, it’s likely important to be aware that the term “forced labor” covers many different forms of coercion, and these may require different approaches. The Uzbek cotton harvesting system appears an unusual, both as a state-run program and as one designed mainly for economic/industrial purposes. The policies that succeeded in eliminating it may be less useful with respect to state forced labor systems used by militaries or for other political purposes. State-required forced labor in turn is a relatively small part of forced labor generally, accounting in the ILO’s estimates for about 15% of the worldwide 27.6 million forced laborers. Most forced labor (see data below) appears to be in small-scale private businesses and criminal enterprises, where the policy challenge will often be effective law enforcement, often at local levels. But some general features of the effort to eliminate forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest may be generally useful.
Publicity: The Cotton Campaign’s work, and the publication of credible data and reports by the U.S. government and ILO, appear to have had a major impact on both international opinion and Uzbek government policy. The U.S.’ GSP review likely added to this; its economic importance was modest — in the mid-2010s it applied to $2.5 million in imports of dried peppers, apricots, and other agricultural goods, out of $100 million to $300 million in annual Uzbek exports to the U.S. — but the reputational impact of the case and potential loss of benefits may have been high. This is especially relevant since, as our January report on GSP notes, the system lapsed almost two years ago and is not now available for the six Ministers’ efforts on forced labor, but can be restored whenever Congress acts.
Patience and persistence: The Cotton Campaign began working in 2007, and remained focused specifically on Central Asian cotton harvesting for a decade before the change of government in Uzbekistan and the subsequent relatively rapid abolition of forced labor in cotton harvesting.
Optimism: In this case, some combination of government policies, activism, and changing perceptions within the Uzbek government worked. Different circumstances elsewhere may require different methods, but the fact of one success means others are also possible.
The ILO on forced labor worldwide as of 2021.
And via the Uzbekistan Embassy in D.C., remarks from Tanila Narbaeva (Chair of National Commission on Combatting Human Trafficking and Forced Labor) on the abolition of forced labor and next steps in labor reform.
Forced labor commitment from U.S./EU/Japan Trade and Labor Ministers.
And the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol explains forced labor-product interdiction.
Data:
Over the last decade, the world labor force has grown from 3.20 billion to 3.45 billion, and the ILO estimates of forced labor has risen from 20.9 million in 2011, to 24.7 million in 2016, to the 27.6 million cited in last week’s report. Basic statistics from last week’s report:
Industries: About two thirds of forced labor, totaling 17.3 million people, is in the “private sector.” This includes 5.5 million in a broadly defined “services” sector, and an additional 1.4 million in domestic work; 3.2 million in manufacturing, 2.8 million in construction; 2.1 million in agriculture; 0.2 million in mining and quarrying; and 0.1 million in fisheries. Child forced labor is most common in services, especially for domestic maid work.
Prostitution and pornography: 6.3 million forced laborers appear to be performing forced sex work (which in the ILO report is considered separately from ‘private sector’ industries). Of this total, 4.9 million are female and 1.4 male. Over a quarter of the 6.3 million people, 1.7 million, are children.
Government: 3.9 million people are held in labor camps or forced to work by governments. (Not including prisoners required to work as part of legitimate sentences for crimes). This total is nearly double the 2.2 million the ILO estimated for 2011, but slightly lower than the 4.1 million estimate for 2016. The ILO does not cite specific governments involved.
International trade: The report offers no guess at how much forced labor production enters international trade flows, but notes that the sectors where the risk of forced labor is “highest in severity and scale” are “informal micro- and small enterprises operating at the lower links of supply chains in high-risk sectors and locations”.
Geography: Forced labor estimates appear roughly consistent with shares of the world labor force, except that Africa’s share of forced labor is relatively low and the “Europe/Central Asian” share high. About half of all forced labor — 15.1 million people — is in Asia. Elsewhere, the ILO estimates 3.6 million people in forced labor in the Western Hemisphere, 0.9 million in Arab states, 3.8 million (and the lowest rate relative to population) in sub-Saharan Africa, and 4.1 million in Europe and Central Asia.
Case history in success: Uzbek cotton 2015-2022:
ILO’s 2016 report (first in the series, covering the 2015 harvest), with analysis on the nature of forced labor in cotton harvesting seven years ago.
And the March 2022 report announces an end to “systemic forced labour and child labour” in Uzbek cotton harvesting.
The Cotton Campaign lifts its boycott of Uzbek cotton, March 2022.
And historical Central Asia perspective:
Sadriddin Aini’s Sands of Oxus (1954), recounting childhood in the Emirate of Bukhara in the 1880s (conquered by imperial Russia in 1865 and no longer independent, but still a “protectorate” and locally self-governing), includes recollection of a temporary forced-labor recruitment episode for road-building.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
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