Modern slavery is increasingly seen as a major global issue - with an estimated 40 million people enslaved - but there is growing debate on the best ways to achieve a U.N. target of ending the $150 billion a year crime by 2030. About 20 million people globally were estimated in 2016 to be forced to work - excluding victims of the sex trade - yet there were only 1,038 prosecutions worldwide for labor trafficking that year. This would represent one prosecution for every 19,270 victims of forced labor.
The world will not end modern-day slavery by focusing on legal action alone and should back a workers' rights "revolution" to protect people from exploitation and forced labor, lawyers, academics and campaigners told a conference.
Governments regard modern slavery and trafficking mainly as a criminal matter rather than as a human rights and labor issue, yet have secured very few prosecutions for forced labor, several experts told an annual conference at U.S.-based Yale University.
Countries must instead concentrate on ensuring workers have labor rights and the power to organise and collectively demand better pay and conditions, said Martina Vandenberg, president of the Washington-based Human Trafficking Legal Center (HTLC).
"Forced labor cases are expensive, lengthy and demand a lot of political will," Vandenberg told the conference on slavery. "We need to move to something revolutionary ... not more law but more organising, workers' rights and power to the people."
"We're not looking to prosecute slavery; we're looking to end it," said Laura Germino, anti-slavery director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida farm workers alliance. "We're not looking to prosecute slavery; we're looking to end it," said Laura Germino, anti-slavery director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida farm workers alliance.
Countless workers in the growing so-called gig economy - who lack fixed contracts and operate on a self-employed basis entitling them to only basic protections - risk being left behind, said Eileen Boris, a professor at California University.
"Independent contractors have less freedom than traditional workers and are facing more exploitation because of the nature of the job market," she said.
All well-meaning good intentions but the SOYMB blog wonders if all those experts understand what is meant by wage-slavery
1 comment:
The only part of your blog that interested me was your last statement:
"All well-meaning good intentions but the SOYMB blog wonders if all those experts understand what is meant by wage-slavery."
I have had a lifetime's experience in that. Smile icon.
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