ILO Factsheet Measuring the costs of coercion Jul 01 2010
Download right click "save as" What are, in addition to the
human suffering, the financial costs of coercion to people who
work in forced labour? In other words, how much money is
"stolen" from people in forced labour? Answering this question
requires some estimate of the net opportunity cost of being in
forced labour, i.e. the amount of income that is lost because a
person is in forced labour instead of being free. In a general
sense, the cost of coercion can be defined as the difference
between a victim's actual income in forced labour and what he or
she would have earned doing the same job in a free labour
relationship. Research over the last few years has shown that
the loss of income associated with coercion can be traced to two
main sources. The first source is the underpayment of wages. The
second source of lost income that we consider arises mainly in
cases of human trafficking: it is the financial costs associated
with the recruitment process.