4 ways to tackle human trafficking

Globally, 21 million adults and children are being forced into unpaid labour and subjected to violence and torture. Human trafficking is a growing part of a global web of illicit activities that make up the shadow economy. The International Labour Organization estimates that forced labour in the global private economy generates $150 billion in illegal profits every year – so it is big business.

Furthermore, an unregulated workforce, and its recruiters and employers, make no contribution to taxation, healthcare systems or any of the services that help societies to flourish, leaving legitimate businesses and governments to carry a larger share of the burden.

Interventions and solutions require action by all segments of society – but what specifically can we do to combat the problem?

Well for a start, it is not enough for business leaders to say they weren’t aware of the corrupt nature of a part of their supply chain; this will count for nothing in the face of outrage from consumers whose choices are increasingly informed by ethical considerations.

There is, of course, a clear moral imperative for all companies to ensure that their business is free of modern slavery.

I had the opportunity to moderate this important conversation at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2016, where several key businesses such as Hilton, Microsoft, Tiffany & Co., among others participated in a conversation with law enforcement representatives such as Interpol, Europol and US representatives both from the Congress and Department of Justice. We started the session with a simple objective, which is to take advantage of the World Economic Forum’s multi - stakeholder platform to harness the various competencies and energy to confront the complex problem of human trafficking and eradicate forced labour from the global supply chain.

In this discussion, we all agreed the need of a more coordinated conversation on this issue. It was never clear what various companies, non-profit organisations, governments and international organisations are doing in this space. We came up with some key suggestions to take this forward:

1) Combating human trafficking is one of the most crucial industry and public policy issues to address now and in the foreseeable future. It is largely in the shadows as many of the largest corporations only indirectly hire many of their employees. There is a greater need of a cross-sector coordination to address this; especially in the space of supply chain management.

2) Very important anti-trafficking work and promising practices are growing in this area. These initiatives need to be catalogued and shared across interested parties. This is evident as many participants to the discussion were surprised at other participants’ initiatives; even within countries, this is not evident from the regulatory space.

3) It is a global problem; no jurisdiction is immune to human trafficking. However, both law enforcement and judiciary bodies require the support and coordination from the private sectors, and vice versa. This also calls for greater trust among law enforcement agencies and private sectors to share information of perpetrators and damages.

4) Working with technology firms to develop data and analytics to understand the size and scope is critical if we want to try and get ahead of this crime. One of the key problems discussed was the lack of accurate measurement to the SIZE of human trafficking, particularly in forced labour. There are numbers and research into sex-trafficking, but that only consists of 25% of the overall human trafficking; and we still have 75% in the dark that we do not have a precise measurement on. In order to combat this problem, we need to understand the size and scope to be able to measure our progress.

The ILO estimates that in 2012, 20.9 million people were in situations of forced labor – it can only be imagined that this figure has increased. Therefore, something must be done; various actors need to create partnerships and work together to address this issue. The formal creation of a public-private partnership within the ambit of the World Economic Forum would be beneficial in advancing the necessary effort to confront this global challenge.

As the World Economic Forum takes forward the work of human trafficking, and gathering organisations and companies active in the fight against human trafficking, many participants to the event acknowledge that this would be hugely beneficial in advancing the effort.