Forced Labor
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At present, there are, at best, unreliable statistics on the numbers of persons in forced labor and the number of enforcement actions, inspections, and effective rehabilitations that take place. With the statistical evidence on both sides of the forced labor equation subject to healthy skepticism, assessing compliance with labor standards requires a number of information and data indicators. In developing its indicators the committee has applied the following criteria:

• Does the indicator or factor provide direct evidence of forced labor or evidence as to the level and effectiveness of enforcement and remediation
• If the indicator is an associated factor or indirect measure, does it provide the basis for understanding the conditions that define the labor market, that contribute to forced labor or lead to the elimination of forced labor, or assess whether enforcement and remediation haves been effective?
• Is the information or data for the indicator or factor readily available and reliable?
• Is the information or data for the indicator sustainable, i.e., susceptible to be kept current on an ongoing basis?

Legal Framework:

The first essential requirement to the elimination of forced labor is a statutory and regulatory regime that comprehensively addresses forced labor. The committee proposes four such indicators:

A-1. ratification of ILO Convention No. 29;

A-2. ratification of ILO Convention No. 105;

A-3. ratification of ILO Convention No. 182; and

A-4 constitutional provisions, statutes, or regulations prohibiting the principal forms of forced labor, including:

• slavery and abductions,
• compulsory participation in public works projects,
• coercive recruitment systems, particularly in rural areas
• bonded labor, including bonded child labor,
• trafficking in persons,
• domestic workers in forced labor situations,
• prison labor and rehabilitation through work.

These legal framework indicators need to be considered in context, however. Forced labor today is universally condemned. The ILO forced labor conventions -- Conventions Nos. 29 and 105 -- are the most highly ratified of the ILO workplace-based human rights treaties encompassing 80 percent of the world's nations. And Convention No. 182, on the worst forms of child labor, has had the fastest ratification rate in ILO history. Clearly, there is a global consensus to eliminate forced labor. Yet there are today seven major categories of forced labor involving millions of workers whose numbers can only be roughly estimated. As the preceding section has highlighted, there are definitional issues within these categories. The problem is so large, however, that the definitional issues become subsidiary to effective implementation of national laws prohibiting forced labor. For example, in 1970, Oman was the last country to outlaw chattel slavery, yet it is clear that chattel slavery still exists in the world.

The existence of credit institutions is a particularly important contextual factor to recognize. In the majority of circumstances, forced labor is a product of poverty. In South Asia and other regions, millions of men, women, and children are tied to their work because of unrelenting debt and inability to get credit. Even after making efforts for 25 years to measure and eradicate bonded labor, India is, in reality, no closer to eliminating it. Because of migration flows, rehabilitated workers in one part of the country fall into debt when they move elsewhere in the country in search of jobs. Solutions in which productive assets and credits were given to bonded male laborers that allowed them to escape their bonded work status have had the consequence of increasing the number of women falling into bondage as a result of family debts shifting to them.

Ratification of ILO conventions abolishing forced labor and enactment of relevant laws is, at best, a commitment to observe their provisions. Elimination of forced labor requires, at minimum, a national will to eliminate it, an effective system of labor administration, an adequate number of labor inspectors, an independent judiciary, authority for courts to order fines, incarceration and penal sanctions, community awareness including local vigilance committees, an effective system of rehabilitation, development of a functioning labor market, and the existence of credit institutions and a growing economy.

Government Performance

The committee proposes eight indicators of government performances to eliminate forced labor:

B-1. an effective system of labor inspection with responsibility for identifying, remedying, and enforcing forced labor prohibitions;

B-2. an independent judiciary to redress forced labor violations;

B-3. courts with authority to order fines and penal sanctions, including incarceration, for forced labor violations;

B-4. community awareness and use of local vigilance committees to identify and monitor forced labor situations;

B-5. government-sponsored credit institutions;

B-6. national, state and local resources devoted to identification, remediation, and enforcement, measured by:

• the percentage of labor department budget devoted to enforcement of forced labor prohibition,
• the number of labor inspectors per 100,000 workers in the formal and informal sectors, and
• annual arrests, prosecutions and penalties for crimes related to forced labor;

B-7. receipt of technical assistance from the International Labour Organization, U.S. governmental or other sources for:

• establishing statutory and regulatory schemes,
• establishing a system of labor inspection, and
• establishing rehabilitation systems; and

B-8. government support of NGO activities related to forced labor, such as victim rehabilitation services, advocacy and awareness-raising programs, and micro credit lending practices.

Overall Outcomes

The committee proposes four indicators of the overall outcomes of governmental policies abolishing forced labor:

C-1. statistics and reports on the number of persons that have been taken out of forced labor;

C-2. statistics and reports of persons who have been rehabilitated from forced labor;

C-3. statistics and reports of persons who have returned to forced labor; and

C-4. statistics on the number of workers still in the prohibited forms of forced labor:

• slavery and abductions,
• compulsory participation in public works projects,
• coercive recruitment systems, particularly in rural areas,
• bonded labor, including bonded child labor,
• trafficking in persons,
• domestic workers in forced labor situations, and
• prison labor and rehabilitation through work.

These statistics need to be assessed with caution. As discussed above, obtaining precise, reliable statistics on outcomes is difficult for a number of reasons. With the criminalization of forced labor, the perpetrators operate in an underground economy that escapes national statistical data gathering. Even if forced labor is occurring in plain view in many societies, it is either relabeled as something else or so accepted that it is not noticed. If forced labor practices are invisible in certain communities, they are not amenable to reliable surveys and measurement. As a consequence, estimates of the magnitude of forced labor can vary widely even when the government openly acknowledges that there is a serious problem.

For example, in 1999, India reported that its state governments had identified 280,340 cases of bonded labor and that 243,375 had been rehabilitated. The Study Group on Bonded Labor of the National Commission on Rural Labor later reported that there had been wrongful identification of bonded laborers in order to gain access to rehabilitation funds (International Labour Organization, 2001). In contrast, Anti-Slavery International estimated in 1999 that there were 10 million bonded laborers in India. Twenty years earlier, the Gandhi Peace Foundation and the National Labour Institute placed the number of bonded laborers at 2.6 million. In 2000, the U.N.'s Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery found that most of the nongovernmental organizations agreed that it was difficult to obtain reliable figures concerning the number of bonded laborers in India or in any other country. Estimates varied from 44 to 100 million people in bondage in India, and some organizations said there were an estimated 65 million children in a similar condition, of which 92 per cent lived in rural areas (U.N. Commission on Human Rights, 2000).

When assessing the effectiveness of enforcement of forced labor prohibitions, the illegal and underground nature of the practices requires information from many sources outside of the labor inspectorate, which may only cover regulated labor market activities. Although strengthened labor inspectorates can improve a nation's capacity to enforce its forced labor prohibitions, the violent, corrupt nature of forced labor practices frequently exceeds the capacity of national labor departments by themselves (International Labour Organization, 2001, para. 38).

Measuring positive enforcement efforts can include statistics on arrests and prosecutions where available, but factors such as the reluctance of the victim to report may be as serious a hindrance as a lack of political will. Where forced labor is pervasive, regional variations of enforcement effort make it difficult to assess overall national compliance. Significantly, the effectiveness of enforcement may have to be measured relative to an uncertain determination of the extent of forced labor.

Poverty - Forced labor, in whatever form, is in part a product of poverty, in which individuals' circumstances result in insufficient economic power to avoid being placed in forced labor. The percentage of population in poverty is therefore an important descriptive indicator of whether the economic circumstances of the population is improving or getting worse at the lowest end of society

Employment-Population Ratio - The employment-population ratio measures the proportion of the working-age population that is employed in the regular labor market. It provides information on the extent to which an economy generates work in the formal sector. Empirical evidence suggests that the employment-population ratio has a higher correlation with economic development and legal work activity (measured by gross domestic product [GDP] per capita) than the labor force participation rate.

Percentage of Population Located in Rural Areas - With so much forced labor originating or taking place in rural areas -- e.g., trafficking, slavery, or bonded labor -- knowing the percentage of the population located in rural areas will spotlight populations where forced labor may be more likely to occur.

Percentage of Children Under 14 Not in School - Regrettably, children, especially in poor countries, are highly susceptible to forced labor, as they are frequently he primary breadwinner for their families. ILO research has shown that there is a strong correlation between nonenrollment in school and economic activity of children.

Percentage of Children Under 14 in Wage Employment - Children under 14 who are reported to be working fulltime or are self-employed are an indication of forced labor.

Percentage of Labor Force Earning Less Than 50 Percent of the Median Wage - Low pay or no pay increases the propensity of falling into forced labor or being unable to get out from under this status. Hourly earnings below half of the median wage are considered to be low. It approximates where the minimum is set in the 30 developed countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1997). As a percentage of the median wage in a particular country, it is independent of currency fluctuations, which facilitates international comparisons.

Percentage of Labor Force Working 60 or More Hours a Week - Excessive hours of work can signal low pay rates and conditions susceptible to forced labor. By any international measure, a work week of 60 hours or more constitutes extreme hours of work if performed on a regular basis.

Percentage of the Population in the Informal Sector - A large, unregulated, underground informal sector is an important indirect indicator of the likelihood of forced labor. For example, in India, where bonded forced labor exists on a large scale, at least 40 percent of the population is in the informal sector.

Informal Economy Employment as a Percent of Employment - The relative size of the formal and informal labor markets is an important barometer of legal and illegal activity. In particular, informal economy employment is most often associated with low pay and absence of social protection and benefits.