Two Courageous Women Try to Counter the Grim Facts of Human Trafficking

Frank Vogl - first published by PASSBLUE on April 28, 2025.

WASHINGTON — Trump administration actions that have been taken and are in prospect will leave a devastating effect on international efforts to curb what former British Prime Minister Theresa May declared “a moral stain on our humanity.”

“Modern slavery and human trafficking is indeed the greatest human rights issue of our time,” she added.

More than 50 million people are victims of slavery and human trafficking, succumbing to criminal networks that are working with corrupt public officials in many countries. The total number of victims is likely to rise in the immediate period ahead.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is sharply reducing the overall size of his department and taking the sharpest aim of all at the offices dealing with humanitarian issues, with far-reaching cuts imminent. At the same time, under Rubio’s direction, most of the humanitarian programs and projects pursued by USAID are being permanently closed.

With the Trump administration curbing its commitment to Europe’s security, the governments of France and Britain — and no doubt others in the near future — are moving funds from aid to defense budgets, so humanitarian programs will suffer.

Against this dire outlook, two determined women are striving to make a positive difference. The most recent steps by the US and others make these women even more compelling in their work to wake up the world to the enormity of slavery and human trafficking.

These leaders, one a former prime minister and the other a former head of a prominent modeling agency, approach the issues from two ends of the spectrum. Baroness Theresa May of Maidenhead, the former British prime minister, is striving to alert the world as she chairs and guides the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. Katie Ford, the former head of Ford Models, is the founder and chief executive officer of Freedom for All, which seeks to help enslaved women to find security, one case at a time.

The shocking conclusion of a vital new report by the Global Commission, “No Country Is Immune: Working Together to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking,” is that the overall fight is being lost. It states: “Systems of slavery are embedding themselves more deeply into global supply chains, into regions facing humanitarian crises, into refugee and migrant flows, as well as into areas most affected by the climate crisis. Collectively, we are failing.”

A host of UN entities — such as the International Labor Organization, Unicef, the Refugee Agency, the Development Program, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Interagency Coordination Group Against Trafficking in Persons — have long worked to counter slavery and human trafficking. Yet, their efforts are not only insufficient, but US funding for these agencies is also likely to be cut drastically soon.

While the largest number of enslaved people are located in Asia, totaling as many as 30 million, the problem is truly global, with millions of victims being forced into prostitution in many countries, including the developed democratic countries of the north and the richest countries of the Mideast.

No discussion of this humanitarian catastrophe can ignore the roles of international organized crime and its willingness to bribe and corrupt public officials, both at national governments who turn a blind eye to their illicit operations and to the officials at national borders who allow people to be involuntarily moved from one country to the next. Here, too, the Trump administration is compounding the problem by curtailing investigations into corruption and money laundering.

My pessimism on the prospects for curbing slavery is tempered by the extraordinary work being done by May as well by many civil society, voluntary groups in numerous countries. Freedom for All is one such organization. Ford’s group states that “these programs create long-term systemic change and provide pathways to better lives. In the past 10 years, we and our partners helped more than 21,775 women, men and children walk the path to freedom.”

Freedom for All, based in New York City, works with partners in Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana and India. The organization works case by case, individual by individual, seeking to save lives. It can be intensely challenging. There are situations, as Ford once told me, where women have been rescued from slavery in the homes of wealthy families in the Mideast and returned to their home country in West Africa, only to end up being retrafficked because of the lack of basic security and economic opportunities.

May’s new report is essential reading. So, too, is support for Freedom for All and charitable organizations like it.

Added to the article, not included in the PASSBLUE opinion essay piece above:-

A 2024 International Labor Organization report, Profits and Poverty: The economics of forced labour, states that forced labour in the private global economy generates $236 billion in illegal profits per year. The current estimate of illegal profits is based on a total of 23.7 million people in forced labour in the private economy, while the 2014 estimate was based on a forced labour population in the private economy of almost 18.7 million. This represents an increase of 27 per cent in people in forced labour in the private economy in the last ten years.

Total annual illegal profits from forced labour are highest in Europe and Central Asia (US$84 billion), followed by Asia and the Pacific (US$62 billion), the Americas (US$52 billion), Africa (US$20 billion), and the Arab States (US$18 billion). Forced commercial sexual exploitation accounts for more than two-thirds (73 per cent) of the total illegal profits, despite accounting for only 27 per cent of the total number of victims in privately imposed labour. These numbers are explained by the huge difference in per victim profits between forced commercial sexual exploitation and other forms of non-state forced labour exploitation – $27,252 profits per victim for the former against $3,687 profits per victim for the latter.[i]

The ILO reported: “An estimated 6.3 million people were in situations of forced commercial sexual exploitation on any given day in 2021. Gender is a key determining factor: nearly four out of every five (78 per cent) people trapped in these situations are girls or women. Children (boys and girls) account for one in four (27 per cent) of the total cases. People in forced labour are subjected to multiple forms of coercion to compel them to work against their will. The systematic and deliberate withholding of wages is the most common (36 per cent) form of coercion, used by abusive employers to compel workers to stay in a job out of fear of losing accrued earnings. This is followed by abuse of vulnerability through threat of dismissal, which was experienced by one in five (21 per cent) of those in forced labour. More severe forms of coercion, including forced confinement, physical and sexual violence.”

[i] The White House, “FACT SHEET: The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking (NAP)” (December 3, 2021), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/03/fact-sheet-the-national-action-plan-to-combat-human-trafficking-nap/

Forced labour in the private economy generates US$236 billion in illegal profits per year, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). The total amount of illegal profits from forced labour has risen by US$64 billion (37 per cent) since 2014, a dramatic increase that has been fuelled by both a growth in the number of people forced into labour, as well as higher profits generated from the exploitation of victims, according to ILO’s 2024 report, Profits and Poverty: The economics of forced labour