Aid cuts and anti-migration policies leave millions trapped in modern slavery
The world is in the grip of a modern slavery crisis, and experts are warning that the situation is spiraling. According to the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking’s new 150-page report, “No Country is Immune,” 50 million people—men, women, and children—are trapped in modern slavery. Yet, instead of ramping up action, governments are slashing aid, dismantling protections, and turning their backs on the most vulnerable.
Former UK Prime Minister, Theresa May told CNN,
“This is the greatest human rights issue of our time. It is a moral stain on our humanity that 50 million people are in slavery today.”
The Commission’s new report outlines how political inaction is enabling exploitation. It calls for urgent reforms such as strong domestic laws, accountability in supply chains, and a global definition of modern slavery. But as May bluntly put it, “the political will to act is gone.”
Aid cuts: undoing decades of progress
Under the Trump administration, the US stopped all overseas grants from the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB). This now dismantled governmental body was instrumental in reducing child labor by 78 million cases in just two decades. Now the programs it supported can no longer operate.
Reid Maki, the coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition, states in the Associated Press:
“We were on a path to eliminating the scourge (of child labor), and now, if ILAB is defunded, if the programs are closed, we’re looking at the reverse. We’re looking at an explosion of child labor.”
According to Catherine Feingold, international director of the AFL-CIO, for AP News,
The Bureau of International Labor Affairs researched and worked to combat modern slavery among children and adults with about $500 million in grants.
The bureau produced annual reports tracking labor conditions and listing products that were made with child labor. American companies relied on the research to determine if there was improper labor in their supply chains.
“You don’t want American workers competing with countries that use forced and child labor,” Feingold said. “I worry that we’re going to see more products made with child and forced labor, both in the U.S. and around the world. We’re going so far back in time here, allowing forced labor and child labor to go rampant in the global economy.”