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Forced labour alive and "well"

Hard to believe that we are supposed to be living in enlightened times.     Human Rights Watch to the forefront yet again.....

"Forced labour, human trafficking, and other forms of modern-day exploitation may seem distant from the lives of ordinary Europeans celebrating Labour Day with a spring holiday.

These abuses are often seen as a scourge of countries beset with poverty, corruption, and crime.

Yet the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 880,000 women, men, and children are victims of forced labour in the European Union.

Many are migrants, but few would guess that the majority of reported forced labour victims are EU citizens who have migrated between member states. The ILO has found cases of domestic servitude in almost all Western European countries. In March, Human Rights Watch issued a report documenting forced labour of migrant domestic workers in the United Kingdom.

The reality of forced labour in the EU is not the whole picture, though.

Almost 21 million people globally are trapped in forced labour, and globalisation has meant that it is hard to know whether the clothes, electronics and toys you buy were made by workers trapped in exploitative and violent conditions abroad.

Indeed, football fans should know that Nepalese and Indian migrant construction workers overhauling Qatar's infrastructure in preparation for the 2022 World Cup are often cheated by recruiters, weighed down by onerous debts, subjected to exploitative laws and policies, and subjected to hazardous working conditions such as labouring in the hot desert sun. Hundreds have already died.

Workers elsewhere in the Gulf states are treated just as poorly.

Forced labour is a human rights issue. But it also carries huge financial costs. The ILO estimates that workers in forced labour lose about $21 billion in wages each year, and those exacting forced labour make $44 billion in illegal profits. States lose billions in tax income and social security contributions."

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