Confronting Root Causes: Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains

Abstract

Excerpt \nIt is by now widely recognised that effectively tackling forced \nlabour in the global economy means addressing its ‘root causes’. \nPolicymakers, business leaders and civil society organisations all \nroutinely call for interventions that do so. Yet what exactly are these root causes? \nAnd how do they operate? \n \nThe two most commonly given answers are ‘poverty’ and ‘globalisation’. Although \neach may be foundational to forced labour, both terms are typically used in nebulous, \ncatch-all ways that serve more as excuses than explanations. Both encompass \nand obscure a web of decisions and processes that maintain an unjust status quo, \nwhile being used as euphemisms for deeper socio-economic structures that lie at \nthe core of the capitalist global economy. \n \nThe question thus becomes: exactly which aspects of poverty and globalisation \nare responsible for the endemic labour exploitation frequently described with the \nterms forced labour, human trafficking or modern slavery? Which global economic \nprocesses ensure a constant and low-cost supply of highly exploitable and coerced \nworkers? And which dynamics trigger a demand among businesses for their exploitation, \nmaking it possible for them to profit from it? \n \nThis 12-part report is an attempt to answer these questions in a rigorous yet accessible \nway. With it, we hope to provide policymakers, journalists, scholars and activists \nwith a road map for understanding the political economy of forced labour in today’s \n“global value chain world”.

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