Baselines to achieve SDG Target 8.7

2017 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery and Child Labour

Background note

Accurate and reliable data is a vital tool in tackling complex social challenges. Not only does it raise awareness about specific issues, but it enables policy makers to take strategic decisions based on evidence, project implementers to target bottlenecks and development partners to address funding gaps.

Multiple stakeholders including International Organizations, Civil Society Organisations (CSO)s, researchers and many others have carried out data research in the fight against forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour. Global estimates have proven to be important vehicles for raising the profile of these issues and have resulted in renewed efforts to eliminate these violations of fundamental labour rights, as seen by the inclusion of Target 8.7 in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which calls on the world to:

“Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms”.

Hearing this call, the international community launched Alliance 8.7 in September 2016, a global strategic partnership committed to achieving Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.7 by focussing on accelerating timelines, sharing knowledge, driving innovation and leveraging resources.

This new impetus to work together is also shaping data research efforts.

In March 2017, the ILO and Walk Free Foundation announced that they will jointly develop a single global estimate of modern slavery. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) will provide data from IOM’s victim assistance database.

The ILO will publish the global estimates of child labour.

These collective efforts will be released as the 2017 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery and Child Labour by Alliance 8.7, authors and partners at a launch in New York during the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. 

The global estimates will also inform discussion at the IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour which will, within the framework of SDG Target 8.7, address forced labour issues and in this context deal with quality youth employment. The Conference will be held from 14-16 November 2017 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The 2017 Global Estimate of Modern Slavery and Child Labour will provide global and regional figures from which progress of global efforts to achieve SDG Target 8.7 can be measured.