International Day For the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

ILO launches book on “Forced labor: Coercion and exploitation in the private economy”

More than 200 years after a slave rebellion in the Caribbean sparked a movement that eventually led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12 million people around the world still work under coercion in forced labour, slavery and slavery-like practices. The ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour is marking the annual International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on August 23 with the release of a new, comprehensive series of case studies and policy recommendations on forced labour and modern slavery in the world today.

News | 19 August 2009

More than 200 years after a slave rebellion in the Caribbean sparked a movement that eventually led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12 million people around the world work under coercion in forced labour, slavery and slavery-like practices.

This year, the ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour is marking the annual International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on 23 August with the release of a new, comprehensive series of case studies and policy recommendations on forced labour and modern slavery in the world today.

The book titled Forced labour: Coercion and exploitation in the private economy1 is based on more than six years of research and features case studies from Latin America, South Asia, Africa and Europe. It expands on the conclusions of the ILO Global Report on forced labour, entitled “The Cost of Coercion” published in May 2009, offering in-depth knowledge about deceptive recruitment systems, debt bondage and other forms of coercion, as well as fresh perspectives on law, policy and statistics.

In anticipation of the day, the ILO is making the new publication available to the media. For more information about the book and its authors or to arrange interviews, please contact Houtan Homayounpour at +41 79 773 14 16 or homayounpour@ilo.org .

1 ISBN 978-92-2-122681-9, a co-publication by the ILO and Lynne Rienner.