Good afternoon ladies, gentleman, distinguished participants
It is a great honour and pleasure to address you on behalf of the ILO, albeit at the very end of this conference, when perhaps many of us have heard and learned rather more than we can absorb and retain.
Let me start by presenting one example of an awareness-raising campaign implemented by the ILO in collaboration with national partners in Brazil. This illustrates many aspects of good practice – as well as some of the challenges. The campaign was undertaken to address internal trafficking, although in Brazil, the practice is widely known as “slave labour”. It is broadly defined to include forced labour, excessive working days, degrading working conditions or restrictions on workers’ mobility. It mostly affects poor male workers who are lured by false promises made by labour recruiters or gatos, often into remote regions of the Amazon, to cattle ranches and charcoal camps, or to vast sugar or soya plantations. There, they are trapped by debt, isolation and physical violence, and unable to escape.
The campaign was undertaken in three main phases, starting in 2003. It used this logo throughout – saying “Slave labour: let us abolish this shame once and for all”. It was just part of a much broader approach by government and partners to combat slave labour and the impunity which underlies it. Until then, only very few people believed that slave labour could exist in Brazil. So, the first phase of the campaign aimed to raise public awareness and put the issue on national policy agendas. Using pro-bono design work by professional advertising agencies and donated air time and press space, posters, a short film, radio spots and other items were developed and widely disseminated. Large posters like this one were displayed at airports throughout the country, illustrating the work and the violence associated with it.
In a second phase, emphasis shifted to the provision of information to rural migrant workers who were most at risk. Small booklets, using simple language and traditional illustrations, gave brief explanations of the forms of deception used and of the slave labour conditions, and gave information about labour rights and what to do in case of problems. They were distributed by local partners, including the Pastoral Land Commission, the Agricultural trade union and the federal highway police.
The third phase aimed to maintain the issue in the minds of the public and policy makers, and centred around an award-winning advert placed in the country’s mass circulation magazines and newspapers – a pair of handcuffed hands, in which the chain was broken on opening the pages.
Alongside these campaigns, other actions included the adoption and implementation of successive federal and state-based action plans; the creation of an inter-ministerial coordination body, and of “mobile inspection units” with the power to impose immediate sanctions on employers found using slave labour and to publish their names in a so-called “dirty list”. A private sector “National Pact” was formed – which commits those companies which sign up to it not to buy anywhere in their supply chain from any enterprise identified on the dirty list. Many companies have joined – big names like Walmart, Coca Cola and Vale, as well as smaller ones - and are subject to an independent monitoring process. A community-based mass education programme – called “Slavery, no way” targets youth in rural communities. The Brazilian model has recently been applauded by the UN Special Rapporteur on Slavery, following her mission there. It illustrates the integrated package of measures that an effective prevention response demands.
And yet, despite all these excellent measures taken, the truth is that slave labour is still a reality in Brazil. The number of workers freed by the mobile units has reached almost 40,000 in total, up to 6,000 per year. For many of those rescued, it is not the first time this happens. They fall into the same trap again and again, even with their first-hand knowledge of how badly things can go wrong. So it seems that this must be a calculated move - based on an assessment that the potential gains from the migration venture outweigh its risks; that it is better to try again, with the hope of a better outcome, than to stay unemployed and poverty-stricken at home. Research reveals, shockingly, that the freed slaves have an ever-higher level of education. Clearly, there is much more to this phenomenon than first meets the eye.
Moving on from Brazil, let me raise some more general questions. We all agree that prevention is better than cure. But what are the right strategies to do this? Do we know what works and why? Do we understand the profile and motivations of those who fall victim, and of those who exploit them? In short, are our prevention strategies really evidence-based? I would argue that, despite extensive research, we still do not know enough about the victims and their exploiters, to allow us to properly design and target our interventions. And we have not done enough to analyse the impact of such interventions. Admittedly, this is much easier said than done. Can we prove, for example, that messages broadcast through radio or TV soap operas led to an actual change in migrants’ behaviour? Did they leave all the same, albeit just a little bit wiser?
For many years, prevention efforts focused mainly on the supply side – alerting migrants to the risks of irregular migration and trafficking. While at first the aim was to stop people moving, over time it was realised that migration cannot be stopped simply by scaring people. Messages changed from “don’t go, be safe” into “be smart, be safe”. Access to free and reliable information is of crucial importance to any migrant. It is often best disseminated at the critical “nodes of migration” – in source communities, transit points, hotels, airports and so on. There has been much good practice in this area. An ILO example is the so-called “Spring Rain” campaign in China, which targeted the millions of young women who flood from rural areas into China’s cities in search of work after the Spring Festival each year. Delivered by over 2,500 railway staff, local officials and volunteers at rail and bus stations in five provinces, nearly 1 million user-friendly printed brochures, banners, videos and audio announcements conveyed key information on safe migration. The campaign featured a young woman “Xiao Wei” and a talking phoenix who helps her to become “Aware and Prepared” for her journey to the city. Durable packs of illustrated playing cards were handed out, each card giving a key message.
Programmes in source countries often include vocational and other training to empower migrants and reduce their vulnerability. In Tajikistan, through a local trade union, an ILO project provided skills training in construction to male workers intending to migrate. Some subsequently found productive employment in Tajikistan. Those who did leave received a trade union membership card that ensured them some level of protection abroad. But we still lack evidence on the relationship between such training schemes and a reduction in trafficking.
Emigration restrictions, imposed especially on young women migrants in an effort to “protect” them, are a particularly problematic prevention measure. In Bangladesh and Nepal, for example, it seems that such restrictions may actually have created incentives for trafficking and irregular migration. They are also fundamentally discriminatory in nature. Mandatory pre-departure training, as required for domestic workers in Indonesia for example, can also breed malpractice and corruption, including abuse and alleged forced labour imposed in the training camps.
So, while much good practice has emerged in “supply side” prevention strategies, we still need more rigorous assessment both of their effectiveness in reducing vulnerability to trafficking, and of their sometimes unintended consequences, including on the human rights of the would-be migrants.
Let me turn then to my main second argument, that prevention efforts must focus in equal measure on the demand side of the equation, on the underground employers who exploit the labour of trafficked men, women and even children. Already in 2007, the EU expert group argued that prevention must go beyond awareness and other measures in origin countries. It emphasised administrative controls and victim identification in destination countries, precisely as a means to address the action of exploiters rather than victims.
The importance of addressing demand is recognized in the 2009 Action Oriented Paper and in the pending EU Directive. The notion of tackling demand in trafficking first arose in connection with sex trafficking, where there is an actual demand for prostitutes. In the case of labour trafficking, the link is less direct. The demand is rather for the cheap goods and services produced by the workers. This translates into an employer “demand” for an ever cheaper and more flexible labour force – that can be secured much more readily among vulnerable irregular or trafficked migrants than among local workers.
Human trafficking is an illicit business that generates vast profits. ILO estimated the annual global profits extracted from trafficked workers at nearly 32 billion US$. If we are to prevent this, we must understand the incentives and motives of traffickers, clients and employers, in short, of those who benefit. Only then can we effectively change the overall environment which allows trafficking to thrive. In other words, we have to make trafficking less profitable in order to prevent it.
How can this be done? In the short time remaining, I would like to focus briefly on one aspect: the special role of labour inspection.
Law enforcement in destination countries is an essential part of any trafficking prevention strategy. Only when there is a perceived significant risk of being caught and criminally sanctioned will those who set out to exploit others think twice about their illegal actions. For many years, labour inspection was a missing partner in national anti-trafficking efforts. This is slowly changing, along with the growing recognition that trafficking can occur in mainstream economic sectors, and that labour inspectorates can play an important role in prevention as well as identification of victims.
In July this year, the ILO in cooperation with the Italian Department of Equal Opportunities hosted a conference in Geneva for representatives of various European labour inspectorates. It was the culmination of a two-year project, funded by the European Commission, to strengthen labour inspection’s capacity to identify victims of labour trafficking and prevent its occurrence. In the period since the initial meeting in 2007, good practices have started to emerge. First, many labour inspectorates have initiated awareness campaigns directed at both migrant workers and, importantly, at their employers. Information leaflets and other materials are published in different languages. European inspectorates have also started to take more effective action to monitor private employment agencies and other agencies providing a cover for trafficking, such as travel or model agencies.
There is also increasing cooperation across borders. An example is the agreement between the UK Gangmaster Licensing Authority and the Bulgarian labour inspectorate signed in 2009. Working together, the agencies aim at better regulation and monitoring of the companies that provide seasonal farm workers to the UK. In the past, the GLA had uncovered a number of scam operations bringing in workers from Bulgaria under highly exploitative arrangements.
Labour inspectors from Portugal highlighted a 2007 law on joint liability. Under this law, both contractors and employers are held liable for undeclared work or tax evasion – practices that can be linked trafficking. The law is enforced by both labour inspectors and immigration authorities. In Italy, the joint command of labour inspectors and carabinieri, and a wider network of NGOs and health and safety inspectors, has built up extensive experience in uncovering situations of human trafficking. Regulations designed to combat undeclared work should be framed so as to create an incentive to play by the rules, rather pushing certain economic activities further underground. Bringing certain activities, such as domestic work and private employment agencies, under the scope of labour law can also help in the prevention of trafficking.
No presentation by an ILO representative would be complete without making specific reference to the contributions that can be made by ILO’s social partners to effective action to prevent human trafficking – employers by taking rigorous compliance measures to ensure that their own businesses and supply chains do not become contaminated by human trafficking; and trade unions by reaching out to assist and empower those most likely to fall victim.
Let me conclude by stating that the ILO and other concerned UN agencies very much welcome the EU member States’ decision to issue a Directive on combating trafficking in persons, with particular emphasis on prevention and protection of victims. Six UN agencies have submitted a joint letter giving our views and suggestions on the draft Directive, including to promote consistency between the new EU legislation and existing international standards and frameworks. We look forward to the adoption of the Directive. By working together to implement it, we must end the modern day crime of human trafficking.
Thank you for your attention.
Caroline O’Reilly
International Labour Office, Geneva
Head, Special Action Programme to combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL)
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