What is Forced Labor?

Is it the same as human trafficking?

Human trafficking and forced labor are two separate but closely related issues. Because victims of human trafficking can and often do end up in situations of forced labor, the two terms are sometimes used simultaneously in news media, the public narrative, and by organizations who work to combat one or both. It’s important to understand however, that not all people who are trafficked are forced to work, and not all people who are victims of forced labor have been trafficked. That’s why it’s important that solutions to both human trafficking and forced labor are developed alongside one another, but with careful consideration of the ways in which the two issues differ, including the unique ways in which people may become victims of forced labor but which do not contribute to a risk of trafficking — including at the hands of a government.

Forced Labor Defined

Internationally, forced labor is defined by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as “…work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”

To better understand what this means, it is helpful to break the definition into its three components: work or service, the menace or threat of penalty, and the extent to which the work is performed by the free choice of the person doing it.

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Human Trafficking Defined

Human trafficking, as defined by the Palermo Protocol, is the, “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of an individual by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion for the purpose of exploitation.” Increasingly, the term is also commonly used to refer to the work of migration “coyotes” who charge exorbitant sums to aid people in illegal movement over international borders, especially the U.S. southern border with Mexico. Not all trafficking includes moving people great distances however. Some trafficking takes place entirely within a given community, and even movement within borders — including within the same state or province — can qualify as trafficking.

Like with forced labor, understanding human trafficking is easiest when the definition is broken down into its three main components: the act, the means, and the purpose.

Who Are the Perpetrators of Human Trafficking & Forced Labor?

Both human trafficking and forced labor happen in every corner of the world and take place in both the public and private sectors.

When either forced labor or trafficking take place in the public sector, it’s referred to as “state-imposed”. Ethnic and other minority groups that live in countries with weak democratic norms. high levels of corruption, low levels of transparency, and/or extreme poverty are at particular risk of state-imposed forced labor, including in ways that contribute to the outright genocide of the group.

In the private sector, both human trafficking and forced labor offenses are often hidden in complex recruitment networks and deep in supply chains that conceal the source of inputs and labor that end up in the goods and services people use every day. While some industries are more susceptible to forced labor and trafficking abuses, no industry is immune to the problem, nor has any country found a way to completely eliminate forced labor offenses. People are trafficked into and forced to work in industries and jobs as different as copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo to meat packing plants in the midwestern United States, from shrimp processing sheds in India to wine production in Italy, from clothing factories in China to coffee plantations in Brazil.