Since slavery imposes multiple drags on development, it follows that ending slavery should promote sustainable development. There is growing evidence of this. For example, IMF researchers recently suggested that eliminating child marriage – one element of modern slavery – would offer poor countries GDP per capita growth of around 1.05 per cent. We explored how anti-slavery efforts would promote the achievement of other SDGs. We found they can contribute to 113 of the 179 Sustainable Development Goal Targets, especially in 1 (Ending Poverty), 4 (Quality Education), 8 (Decent Work), 13 (Climate Action) and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).
What approach do development actors currently take to modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking? To answer that question we surveyed practitioners from 16 countries and reviewed the practice of bilateral development agencies (US, UK, Norway, Australia), multilateral development banks (the World Bank; ADB, AfDB, EBRD, EIB, IDB), export credit agencies, development finance institutions, new development lenders (AIIB, New Development Bank), and China.
While Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom encouraged thinking about human capabilities as a foundation of development, most development entities continue to assume that all people – at least all adults – have economic agency. That is not always so. Yet most development actors fail to account meaningfully for the economic implications of the loss of agency experienced by 40.3 million people.
67 per cent of development practitioners surveyed said their organizations perceive slavery not as an economic, trade or industrial policy concern, but as a social or criminal justice policy concern. Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, most development actors treat slavery risk reduction as a project safeguarding question – a risk management issue – not as a strategic objective of capital allocation decisions or policy advice. Only 21 per cent of practitioners surveyed said modern slavery risks are factors guiding investing or lending objectives.
Slavery is not treated by development sector actors as a predictable outcome of how risk is structured and distributed by prevailing economic arrangements and development strategies. The sector lacks a coherent policy approach that locates anti-slavery as part of a deliberate strategy to promote sustainable development, instead treating it as an unintended and unpredictable risk arising from and to be addressed through project management. Privatizing and devolving project risk management to beneficiaries, as many development actors now do, rather than approaching slavery reduction as a public policy question, may also lead to unintended results. For example, deferring to national labour standards risks amplifying labour violations and reinforcing institutional environments conducive to such violations.
There are growing efforts from the OECD, IFC and others to promote responsible business conduct (RBC) by beneficiaries. But these efforts may not reach the up-stream, informal sites of slavery, or address intersection of programming with contextual factors to increase risk. DFIs and ECAs may need to consider not just how slavery risk may arise within project execution, but also how contextual risk can heighten project risk, and vice versa. In Ghana, for example, World Bank funding for a dam in the 1960s led to the disruption of traditional agricultural livelihoods, which then led to families trafficking their children into slavery on Lake Volta. And presently, in Eritrea, EU financed road construction, managed by the UN, may contribute to demand for forced labour supplied through a controversial government conscription scheme.
Where safeguards fail, development actors often seem unwilling or unable to provide or enable effective remedy for resulting modern slavery harms, as required by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.