The Last Word: Is slavery a thing of the past?

In June 2001, the International Labor Office (ILO) in Geneva issued its report on forced labor based on information compiled by the United Nations. While there are no exact numbers of individuals abducted into slavery, debt bondage, bonded labor and other forms of servitude, the ILO does acknowledge that forced labor has not been eliminated. Forced labor is increasingly exacted in the illicit, underground economy that tends to escape any attempts to gather national statistics.

In 1930, at the first ILO convention on the subject, they agreed: “The term ‘forced or compulsory labor’ shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” After World War II, new issues emerged with freedom of employment in the Communist bloc countries, some newly independent states and developing countries that had to replace unpaid labor systems with free-wage labor systems. Certain groups — such as women, ethnic or racial minorities, children and the poor — are particularly vulnerable to denial of freedom.

Europe has seen an explosion of trafficking since the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Men and women from the Balkans and Eastern Europe comprise most of those trafficking unwillingly across borders. Only one country, Myanmar, has ever been officially sanctioned for widespread and systematic state-sponsored forced labor. Even in this egregious case, the government claimed it was necessary as a contribution to rapid economic development. Cambodia, Central African Republic, Kenya, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania and Vietnam still provide for some form of compulsory labor or service.

The number of women and children trafficked across national borders — and then forced into activities such as sweatshop labor, domestic service and prostitution — has dramatically increased in the last 10 years. Very often it is not the state that is responsible for this, but rather private individuals and groups acting with impunity from law enforcement agencies. The report questions why trafficking in drugs is punished more severely than trafficking in human beings.

Do you think that, while this is interesting, it really doesn’t have any application to us here in the United States? The report cites a U.S. federal court case in which trafficking forced 70 women from Thailand to work in a clandestine garment factory surrounded by sentries and high walls topped with razor wire. The defendants were given prison sentences of up to seven years and the court awarded $4.5 million to the victims. Since coercion is at the very heart of forced labor, few cases will ever reach a courtroom because victims are afraid to report for fear of retribution.

Consumers are now becoming aware that their diamonds may be “conflict diamonds” that were mined by unwilling workers forced into virtual slavery in Sierra Leone. Supporting measures to stop the trade in diamonds extracted by miners pressed into service by parties to the conflict may help achieve a lasting peace and the quick liberation of these slaves. Prison labor is another serious concern of the ILO; in some instances, prisoners are forced to work either for the state or for private, commercial purposes. The ILO is also concerned with the trend toward privatization of prisons in the U.S. and other nations.

The full text of Stopping Forced Labor is available at www.ilo.org/declaration.

(Stony Brook HSCer Colleen Kenefick is an associate librarian in the Health Sciences Library. She is chapter newsletter editor and serves as an academic delegate to the union’s Delegate Assemblies.)