Essay

Exploited and Invisible: Forced Labour Today

By Kim Weidenberg / Service Centre against Labour Exploitation, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking

The assumption that forced labour is a phenomenon of the past ignores reality. Estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that the incidence of forced labour has risen sharply in recent years. It currently affects some 50 million people worldwide, of whom 28 million are in forced labour, while 22 million are in forced marriages, mainly exploited as domestic servants. More than half of all forced labour takes place in middle and high-income countries.

According to ILO Convention 29 (1930, Protocol of 2014), forced labour is defined as “any work or service which is required of any person under the threat of punishment, and for which the said person has not offered themselves of their own free will”. The boundary between forced labour and labour exploitation is often blurry, as people’s increasing helplessness or desperation is exploited. In most cases, both factors are present in forced labour.

High Profit – Low Risk

Most forced labour takes place in private enterprises and households. However, labour exploitation can occur in almost any industry. In low-wage sectors such as meat processing, delivery, hospitality, care and seasonal agriculture, migrant workers are at very high risk of exploitation, while the profits are enormous. The ILO estimated in 2014 that the annual profits were more than US$150 million worldwide.

Exploiters have no fear of being prosecuted and punished. When people are discovered in exploitative jobs, they have usually not been informed of their rights and are not seen as potential victims. Few cases are investigated. Workers are often deported without having the opportunity to claim their unpaid wages.

Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains

Many studies indicate that forced labour is widespread in global supply chains. This can involve supply chains for goods such as agricultural produce, clothing, mobile phones, computers or jewellery, or services such as parcel delivery or domestic work. Migrant workers are most often affected by forced labour, due to factors including unfair and unethical recruitment practices, poverty, restrictive border policies or lack of health and safety standards, as well as racism and discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin or other social criteria, which are often among the reasons why migrant workers are more vulnerable to forced labour in the global economy.

Many people in seasonal agricultural work are victims of forced labour or exploitative conditions © Photo: Thomas Brauner, CC 2.0

Migrants Are Especially at Risk of Forced Labour

Germany is one of the main destination countries for migrant workers. The number of migrant workers among the victims of forced labour is significantly higher than the proportion of migrant workers in the total working population. Migrant workers tend to work in low-wage sectors because their qualifications are not recognised or they lack training. The trapdoor into trafficking, forced labour and exploitation can open at the stage of recruitment, as these crimes usually start with victims being deceived about the working conditions and wages of a job.

They arrive in the destination country unaware of their rights, unable to speak the local language and with little or no social support networks. Forced labourers often live isolated from others, their accommodation is often far away or directly at the workplace and controlled by employers.

A person’s dependence on work due to poverty or lack of residence or work permits is fertile ground for many forms of coercion, including systematic and arbitrary withholding of wages, extreme working hours, coercion, isolation, confiscation of documents and even physical violence. Migrant workers are also subjected to indirect pressure, such as having to pay inflated travel or recruitment costs or risk deportation.

Forced Labour in Germany: Two Examples

Ms A. fled the war in Ukraine to Germany in early 2022. An agency found her a job as a cleaner in a four-star hotel for a fee of 300 euros. She was promised accommodation and a salary of 1,200 euros a month. When she arrived, she had to share a small room with mould on the walls with three other women from Ukraine. After a month, she was paid 200 euros. She collected the deposit of empty bottles on the street to survive. Because she spoke to journalists, Ms A. was threatened at night in her hostel. Ms A. was so desperate that, traumatised and penniless, she fled to a women's shelter.

Andrei is from Romania and spent January and February working for a tree farm in Germany. His job involved wrapping hundreds of very heavy tree trunks in plastic every day and loading them onto trucks for transport. Other days he spent twelve hours planting saplings in sub-zero temperatures. Andrei says that on several occasions he was verbally abused and physically assaulted by the aggressive bosses at the tree farm when they thought he was not working hard enough. The owner even threatened another Romanian worker with a knife. He had collected all the workers' passports from the start, supposedly to prevent them being stolen. When he and other workers complained about their working hours and living conditions, the employer threw the ten men out into the street in freezing temperatures without paying them their wages or returning their passports. This left the workers homeless.

Implementing Victims’ Rights – Protection against Forced Labour

Various sectors and industries in Germany exploit people without being prosecuted and without the victims being able to claim their rights. There is a great need for counselling centres, emergency food aid and adequate shelter. When victims of forced labour manage to escape from exploitative conditions, they are often homeless, traumatised and in urgent need of support and social protection.

The Service Centre against Forced Labour strengthens nationwide cooperation structures to combat labour exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking, and raises awareness of the issue among (law enforcement) authorities, counselling centres and social partners, in particular of the forms it takes, how to identify people who are victims of it and what action can be taken. The Service Centre is funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and supported by Arbeit und Leben Berlin-Brandenburg DGB/VHS e. V.