Fighting forced labour

Noticias Aliadas [Latinamerica Press]

Fighting forced labour

Latin America

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Eradication of forced labor is the responsibility of everyone, the ILO says

More than 12.3 million people are the victims of forced labor, and 1.3 million of them are in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a report from the International Labor Organization (ILO) released May 11.

Annual worldwide profits from forced labor total US$32 billion, $1.3 billion of which are generated in Latin America and the Caribbean, shows the study entitled, "A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor."

The ILO defines forced or obligatory labor as a type of work or service that is demanded when a person is under the threat of punishment. Slavery is considered a type of forced labor.

In Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru, forced labor is associated with servitude in exchange for owed debts, the study indicated. Generally, workers receive advances that they have to pay off with their labor, or their belongings such as lumber or chestnut baskets, which they can potentially sell.

In Peru, more than 30,000 people are affected by forced labor. The majority of these workers labor in illegal logging operations in the Amazon. In Brazil, it is estimated that as many as 25,000 people are subjected to enslaved labor, mainly in the states of Para and Mato Grosso.

The main victims of forced labor are women and children: they comprise 56 percent of all cases. And, in Latin America, the populations of remote, indigenous villages are considered particularly susceptible to both forced labor and servitude in exchange for debt payoffs.

"For centuries, the environment of indigenous populations have been systematically discriminated against on this continent. It is where one finds greatest number of people linked to forced labor," stated Ricardo Hernández-Pulido, director of the ILO Subregional Office for the Andean Countries.

Cutting costs
"Forced labor represents another face of globalization, one that denies people their fundamental rights and dignity," said Juan Somavía, executive director of ILO.

"There is a critical need for devising effective strategies against forced labour today, This requires a blend of law enforcement and ways of tackling the structural roots of forced labor, whether outmoded agrarian systems or poorly functioning labor market"

Daniel Martínez, the acting regional director of the ILO Regional Office Latin America and the Caribbean, said at the presentation of the study in Lima, "the development of growing economic models in recent years have facilitated the continued use of forced and enslaved labor even through the governments tried to eradicate it."

"There are sectors of the economy where an unregulated competitivity criteria is used to justify the use of enslaved labor as a way to lower costs and gain an unfair, commercial advantage," he added.

Martínez stressed the importance of social action to try to increase awareness about the illegality of this practice.

"The best allies against worker exploitation are the consumers themselves, and in the end, we are all responsible. Any one of us who is aware that a product was made with child or enslaved labor, is just as responsible as the evil businessman who permitted it," Martínez concluded.

The ILO has introduced the need for an international alliance against this awful practice that "involves governments, employers and workers organizations, development agencies and international financial institutions that are committed to the reduction of poverty, and civil society," Somavía said.