ExplainSpeaking | Global Slavery Index: Where does India rank, and why are its findings contested?

What is modern slavery?

According to the index, “modern slavery” refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuses of power. Modern slavery is an umbrella term and includes a whole variety of abuses such as forced labour, forced marriage, debt bondage, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, slavery-like practices, forced or servile marriage, and the sale and exploitation of children.

The schematic alongside provides a broad framework of what all modern slavery covers.

What is modern slavery?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations also resolve to end modern slavery. Target 8.7 of the SDGs states: “Take 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.”

What is the Global Slavery Index?

The index presents a global picture of modern slavery. It is constructed by Walk Free, a human rights organisation and is based on data provided by the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, which, in turn, is produced by International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and International Organization for Migration (IOM).

This is the fifth edition of the Global Slavery Index and is based on the 2022 estimates.

However, the initial estimates are regional and to arrive at country-wise estimates, the index uses several representative surveys.

What are the country-wise findings?

There are three sets of key findings.

The first looks at the prevalence of modern slavery. The prevalence refers to the incidence of modern slavery per 1000 population. On this count, the following 10 countries are the worst offenders:

1. North Korea
2. Eritrea
3. Mauritania
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Turkey
6. Tajikistan
7. United Arab Emirates
8. Russia
9. Afghanistan
10. Kuwait

“These countries share some political, social, and economic characteristics, including limited protections for civil liberties and human rights,” states the index.

Following are the countries with the lowest prevalence:

1. Switzerland
2. Norway
3. Germany
4. Netherlands
5. Sweden
6. Denmark
7. Belgium
8. Ireland
9. Japan
10. Finland

However, apart from prevalence, the index also calculates the countries hosting the maximum number of people living in modern slavery. Here the list is as follows:

1. India
2. China
3. North Korea
4. Pakistan
5. Russia
6. Indonesia
7. Nigeria
8. Turkey
9. Bangladesh
10. United States

“Collectively, these countries account for nearly two in every three people living in modern slavery and over half the world's population. Notably, six are G20 nations: India, China, Russia, Indonesia, Türkiye, and the US,” points out the index.

Why are the findings of this index contested?

Notwithstanding the regular publication, the index has come in for sharp criticism even from those in the civil society that work on issues such as human trafficking. Bandana Pattanaik, International Coordinator of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) in Thailand, says that while authors of the Index “clearly have very good intentions” they end up “depoliticising the problems and distracting us from the real problems.”

Pattanaik points out several reasons for her disagreement with the index:

A universal, reliable calculation of modern slavery isn't possible because modern slavery has no internationally agreed definition (unlike trafficking in persons which does). “‘Modern slavery' is a made-up concept with no international legal definition and, in fact, the definition used in this Index has changed from year to year,” she points out.

The way the authors “estimate” the number of people experiencing modern slavery is partially based on a country's “risk score”. But, Pattanaik points out, the factors that determine a country's “risk” are many of the same factors that are used to determine whether a country is “developed” or “developing.” “It's therefore unsurprising that the Index concludes that ‘Europe is the region least vulnerable to modern slavery' and ‘Africa is the region most vulnerable to modern slavery',” she says.

She also points out that some of the “so-called statistics” presented in the Index actually contradict qualitative analysis contained within the body of the report. For example, the index prominently displays the UK as having the “strongest government response to modern slavery.”

Yet buried much further down at page 28 is the finding that “the United Kingdom's overall response [to slavery] has declined since 2018… [there has been] a worsening of measures on victim protection and access to visas… A proposed Illegal Migration Bill introduced in March 2023 is a potential violation of international law and the UN Refugee Convention and it shows that the UK is at risk of continuing its downward trend.”

In a nutshell, Pattanaik argues that “ranking countries in this way is stigmatising poorer countries and absolving richer countries of their responsibility for issues like trafficking in persons.”

However, while there may be several issues with an index of modern slavery — ranging from lack of clear definition to ranking methodology — the fact remains that workers in countries such as India do face considerable odds. The tortuous reverse migration witnessed during the first Covid lockdown brought this out in discomforting detail. Similarly, poor status of women, especially on the front of economic freedoms, is reflected in metrics such as one of the lowest female labour-force participation rates.

“In the post pandemic times and in the year of our presidency of G20, we could do something that will really address the precarity of millions of workers in our country,” states Pattanaik.

Until next time,

Udit