Marine fisheries are in crisis, requiring twice the fishing effort of the 1950s to catch the same quantity of fish, and with many fleets operating beyond economic or ecological sustainability. A possible consequence of diminishing returns in this race to fish is serious labour abuses, including modern slavery, which exploit vulnerable workers to reduce costs. Here, we use the Global Slavery Index (GSI), a national-level indicator, as a proxy for modern slavery and labour abuses in fisheries. GSI estimates and fisheries governance are correlated at the national level among the major fishing countries. Furthermore, countries having documented labour abuses at sea share key features, including higher levels of subsidised distant-water fishing and poor catch reporting. Further research into modern slavery in the fisheries sector is needed to better understand how the issue relates to overfishing and fisheries policy, as well as measures to reduce risk in these labour markets.
In 2016, there were an estimated 40.3 million victims of modern slavery in the world, more than were enslaved during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Since the adoption of the 2000 UN Trafficking Protocol, numerous efforts from inter-governmental agencies, governmental agencies, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have strived to combat the phenomena of human trafficking through legal-institutional means, direct interventions, and programs of support for those exploited. This anti-trafficking work has paid varying degrees of attention to the principles and methods of monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment, but has often been subject to the end of project evaluations. Similar to findings of reviews of evaluations in the international development sector, evaluations of anti-trafficking programing have primarily focused on assessing the progress of project implementation and the achievement of outputs, rather than tracking the achievement of outcomes or impact. This is further complicated by the hidden nature of human trafficking and the trauma experienced by humantrafficking victims. As a consequence, despite some evidence of raised awareness and increased levels of funding, organizations are still struggling to demonstrate impact and discern what works to combat human trafficking. This article analyses the evaluations of counter-trafficking programing produced since the Protocol to draw conclusions regarding the lessons learned from these interventions and the methods used to monitor and evaluate human-trafficking programs. By highlighting gaps, this article provides a series of suggestions on how to better track progress and impact toward the elimination of modern slavery.
In 2014, the Walk Free Foundation released the second edition of the Global Slavery Index (the Index). The annual report estimated the number of people in modern slavery in 167 countries, assessed government responses to this issue, and examined the factors that contribute to risk of enslavement. This paper will provide an overview of the evolution of the government response component for the 2014 edition of the Index, explore the challenges involved in quantifying a government response to modern slavery through an examination of the situation in Vietnam, and highlight how the conceptual framework attempts to capture the various social, political and cultural intricacies involved in responding to modern slavery. Finally, the paper will discuss some of the limitations of applying a comprehensive framework to varied socio-political contexts, and identify potential ways forward as the Walk Free Foundation strives to address the gaps in research on responses to modern slavery.
This article will examine the efficacy of current programme services for adolescent girls at risk of forced labour through an analysis of Walk Free’s Promising Practices Database. The Database is a collection of evaluations of anti-slavery and counter-trafficking programmes since 2000, categorised by type of intervention, location of programme, and target population, among other terms. This article identifies what lessons can be learnt, if any, to both prevent and tackle the forced labour of adolescent girls, with a particular focus on the garment and textile industries. We examine a subset of the Promising Practices Database of 81 evaluations, where at least one component in programme design was targeted at adolescent girls. We find that, in line with other critiques of human trafficking research, most evaluations are disproportionately focussed on programmes tackling sex trafficking to the exclusion of other forms of forced labour. Based on two existing evaluations, and related programmes in the garment sector, we determine the importance of community-led, inclusive, rights-based awareness-raising and the need to tailor interventions specifically to the needs and life-stage of the target group.
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