3071-The political economy of new slavery

218 Modern Slavery and Fair Trade Products
In 2001, New Internationalist estimated that there were about 27 million
people who existed ‘in a state to which the term slavery can be
applied...This is higher than during the heyday of the colonial slave
trade’ (New Internationalist, 2001, p. 10).
Modern slavery and trafficking in persons are inseparable from extreme
poverty and underdevelopment in Africa, Asia and Latin America and
poverty and lack of opportunities in Eastern Europe, which create a
socio-economic environment conducive to practices of forced labour
and child labour. The US Department of State’s report notes that:
in countries with chronic unemployment, widespread poverty and
a lack of economic opportunities, traffickers use promises of higher
wages and good working conditions in foreign countries to lure people
into their networks. Victims, who want a better life for themselves
and their families, are easily convinced by the traffickers’ promises.
US Department of State, 2002, p. 1
For example, in Burkina Faso, ‘most of the trafficking problems...result
from a traditional regional pattern of poverty-driven mass migration
of very young children in search of subsistence labor in mining, crafts,
agriculture, and as domestics’ and ‘Burkina Faso is severely constrained
in all its efforts against trafficking by its profound poverty’ (US Department
of State, 2002, p. 34). Debt-bondage is similarly related to extreme
poverty. For example, a Human Rights Watch report states that:
the poor remuneration of manual scavenging, agricultural labor, and
other forms of low-caste employment often force families of lower
castes or caste-like groups into bondage. A lack of enforcement of
relevant legislation prohibiting debt bondage in most of the countries
concerned allows for the practice to continue unabated.
HRW, 2001
In India, for example, poor families send their children to work for
creditors to pay off debts and loans and young children end up working
for long hours in appalling conditions (New Internationalist, 2001,
p. 11). According to the UN Working Group on Contemporary Forms
of Slavery, about 20 million are caught in debt-bondage and India
alone claims at least 10 million (New Internationalist, 2001, p. 11),
while Human Rights Watch estimates that there are about 40 million
bonded labourers in India (HRW, 2001). The ILO report also observes
that there is a relationship between poverty and modern slavery: