Rethinking Trafficking 🚏
Last year, India protested against the release of a report, ‘Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage’, a collaborative effort of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Walk Free Foundation, and the International Organisation for Migration. The report estimated that there were 40.3 million “modern slaves” worldwide in 2016, with 24.9 million in forced labour and 15.4 million in forced marriages. It did not name countries, but the writing on the wall was clear as 17,000 interviews had been conducted in India, and 61.78% of the “modern slaves” were in Asia and the Pacific. Registering its protest with the ILO, India vowed to undertake its own surveys. The Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and member of NITI Aayog, Bibek Debroy, was scathing in his critique. He called the estimates on forced marriage “confused and fuddled” and urged reliance on the government’s report...