Sex trade to slavery: a UN agency says criminals reap $236B a year in profits

Illegal profits from forced labor worldwide have risen to the “obscene” amount of $236 billion per year, the U.N. labor agency reported yesterday, with sexual exploitation to blame for three-fourths of the take from a business that deprives migrants of money they can send home, swipes jobs from legal workers, and allows the criminals behind it to dodge taxes.

The International Labor Organization said the tally for 2021, the most recent year covered in the painstaking international study, marked an increase of 37%, or $64 billion, compared with its last estimate published a decade ago. That’s a result of both more people being exploited and more cash generated from each victim, ILO said.

“$236 billion. This is the obscene level of annual profit generated from forced labor in the world today,” the first line of the report’s introduction said.

That figure represents earnings “effectively stolen from the pockets of workers” by those who coerce them to work, as well as money taken from remittances of migrants and lost tax revenue for governments.

Forced labor can encourage corruption, strengthen criminal networks and incentivize further exploitation, ILO said.

Its director-general, Gilbert Houngbo, wants international cooperation to fight the racket.