Call to wipe out modern slavery:  

Call to wipe out modern slavery:  

Context

There is an urgent need for more aggressive and effective implementations of labor law protections to eliminate modern slavery and forced labour in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What is the current incidence?

The day International Labor Organization (ILO) released new global estimates of modern slavery, a group of over 40 activists and academics from different parts of the world have released a 25-point signed statement urging India to ensure a more effective implementation of labour law protections to eliminate modern slavery and forced labour in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What was the content of the statement released?

• Dominant international discourses on modern slavery do not adequately reflect the extreme exploitation and precarious nature of employment in India today
• An undue emphasis on sensationalist accounts of modern slavery deny the widespread prevalence of economic exploitation, even now based on social customs, cultural traditions and hereditary obligations, and obfuscate the continuum between extreme and ‘everyday’ forms of such exploitation.
• A multi-pronged strategy that responds to the needs of all affected constituencies, including bonded labourers, contract workers, domestic workers, intra- and inter-state as well as international migrant workers, and sex workers is necessary in order to achieve SDG 8.7

What is the objective of SDG 8.7?

The SDG 8.7 calls for 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.S

What is the way forward?

• The most effective and durable way to prevent all forms of extreme exploitation lies in the self-organisation of workers and in their efforts at collective bargaining, especially through trade unions and workers’ collectives
• The problem of trafficking can be addressed through a multi-faceted legal and economic strategy that strengthens the implementation of labour protections such as those guaranteed by the Constitution