The Forced Labor Risk Report

Forced labor is difficult to identify because it can sit inside employment arrangements that appear ordinary from the outside. The risk is distributed across the employment relationship rather than contained in one visible event. Recruitment agencies, labor brokers, subcontractors, employers, accommodation providers and buyers can each influence whether work remains genuinely voluntary.

The global scale is substantial. An estimated 27.6 million people were in forced labour in the latest global benchmark, including 17.3 million in private-economy exploitation, 6.3 million in forced commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million in state-imposed forced labour. Risk assessment becomes more useful when prevalence is separated from vulnerability, sector exposure, recruitment practice, institutional response and the commercial demand that links importing markets to upstream production.

Country statistics also require careful interpretation. Conversely, a country with a relatively small population can carry a severe prevalence signal. The strongest approach keeps absolute numbers and prevalence visible together, then adds structural vulnerability and government response so that one headline figure does not become a false quality label for an entire labor market.

The same principle applies to supply chains. Recruitment may occur in a worker's home country, production in a destination country and purchasing decisions in a third market. The Forced Labor Risk Report therefore follows the full system: how workers enter jobs, what controls they experience during work, whether they can leave freely, how goods move through supply chains, and whether governments and companies can identify and remediate harm.

Executive Forced Labor Risk Benchmarks

The numbers that define the risk landscape

Soft labor-market language can obscure hard indicators. The most important global benchmark is 27.6 million people in forced labour. Of that total, 17.3 million are associated with exploitation in the private economy, 6.3 million with forced commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million with state-imposed forced labour.

Children remain part of the global burden, with about 3.3 million children estimated to be in forced labour. Adult migrant workers also face markedly higher exposure: the prevalence of forced labour among adult migrant workers is more than three times that of non-migrant adults.

Sector concentration adds a commercial dimension. Roughly 87% of adult forced labour in the private economy occurs across five broad sectors: services, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and domestic work.

The economics reinforce why prevention cannot depend on reputational pressure alone. Illegal profits generated from forced labour in the private economy are estimated at approximately US$236 billion annually, or around US$10,000 per victim. The profit estimate is about 37% higher than the earlier comparable benchmark.

Executive Forced Labor Risk Framework

 

 

Why Forced Labor Requires a System-Based Risk Benchmark

Forced labor is rarely produced by one isolated condition. Another worker may hold no debt but depend on an employer-controlled visa, housing and transport system that makes resignation practically impossible. Each situation requires the assessment to move beyond a single compliance field.

This is why written policy and worker experience must be separated. A brand can map Tier 1 factories while the raw material, labor agency or home-based production network remains several tiers outside direct visibility. The apparent control can therefore be strongest at the point furthest from the actual vulnerability.

A system-based benchmark asks how the employment relationship is created and maintained. It then links those worker-level conditions to sector structure, sourcing geography, government response and buyer behavior.

The advantage is not simply more data. It is better interpretation. Keeping them separate avoids turning a broad national risk signal into an accusation against every supplier, or turning a clean audit into proof that upstream recruitment and subcontracting are safe.

Low-Information vs System-Based Assessment

 

 

The Global Scale of Forced Labor

Separating prevalence from absolute population exposure

Global totals establish the size of the problem, but the composition of the 27.6 million estimate determines which controls matter most. Private-economy exploitation represents 17.3 million people, far larger than the 6.3 million estimated in forced commercial sexual exploitation and the 3.9 million in state-imposed forced labour.

Absolute population estimates should not be confused with prevalence. Prevalence per 1,000 population answers a different question: how concentrated the estimated risk is relative to the size of the population. A smaller country can therefore show a severe prevalence rate while contributing a smaller number to the global total.

The distinction becomes important when national statistics are used in procurement. A specialist importer sourcing from a smaller high-prevalence market can face a very different risk pattern. Neither number should be converted automatically into a supplier verdict; both should guide the depth and type of verification.

The most defensible global view therefore combines the total forced-labour estimate with form, region, worker type and economic sector. That creates a hierarchy of questions: how much forced labor exists, where it is concentrated, which workers carry disproportionate exposure, and which employment structures allow coercion to persist.

Figure 1. Private-economy exploitation accounts for the largest component of global forced labour, making employment and supply-chain controls central to prevention.

 

Private-Economy Forced Labor and Economic Extraction

Why forced labor persists as an economic model

Forced labor persists partly because coercion can be monetized. The latest economic estimate places annual illegal profits from forced labour in the private economy at about US$236 billion. That is roughly US$10,000 per victim each year and around 37% above the earlier comparable profit estimate.

The extraction can take several forms. Final wages can be withheld until a contract ends, turning accumulated pay into leverage against resignation. In other cases, the financial return comes from demanding more hours than workers freely agreed to perform.

Economic analysis matters because it changes the prevention question. If a supplier meets unrealistic price and delivery targets by using unauthorized subcontractors, audit compliance at the primary factory may coexist with exploitation elsewhere. Buyer purchasing practices can therefore influence the risk environment even when the buyer never directly employs the worker.

The practical benchmark should test whether labor costs are being transferred to workers and whether a company's commercial model rewards hidden coercion. Strong controls include employer-paid recruitment, transparent deductions, verified overtime consent, timely wage payment, subcontractor mapping and remediation that returns money or documents to affected workers rather than treating supplier termination as the only response.

Figure 2. The 2024 estimate of annual illegal profits is approximately US$236 billion; the earlier comparable level shown is derived from the reported 37% increase.

 

Recruitment Debt and the Entry Point Into Forced Labor

Why exploitation often begins before the first day of work

For many workers, forced-labor vulnerability begins before the first day at the worksite. When those costs are financed through loans, the worker may arrive already carrying a debt that cannot be repaid quickly from the promised wage. The employment relationship then begins with an imbalance that can make resignation financially impossible.

Debt becomes more coercive when combined with deception. Accommodation and meals can be deducted at higher-than-expected rates. Passports or identity documents may be held as security. Each additional dependency raises the practical cost of saying no.

The strongest prevention model moves recruitment costs away from the worker. The model must extend through the entire recruitment chain because a primary agency can comply while sub-agents continue charging fees in origin communities.

Recruitment should therefore be treated as part of supplier due diligence rather than an HR event completed before employment. Where fees have been paid, the critical measure is not whether the employer can explain the practice but whether the worker is fully repaid and protected from retaliation.

Recruitment Risk Signals

 

 

Migrant Workers and Unequal Exposure

Adult migrant workers face forced-labor prevalence more than three times that of non-migrant adults in the global benchmark. The ratio is one of the clearest worker-level risk signals because migration can concentrate several dependencies in one employment relationship.

The risk is strongest when changing jobs is difficult. Remote worksites can reduce contact with civil society and labor inspectors. Workers may also fear deportation, loss of recruitment investment or retaliation against family members who helped finance migration.

Migration itself should not be treated as a quality defect or evidence of forced labor. The relevant question is whether migration is used as a control mechanism. A worker who retains documents, understands the contract, owes no recruitment debt and can change or leave employment has a very different risk profile from a worker whose legal and financial status is tied entirely to one employer.

For companies, this requires segmentation inside the same facility. Recruitment fees, contracts, deductions, housing, document control and resignation conditions should therefore be analyzed separately by worker group.

Figure 3. The global benchmark reports forced-labour prevalence among adult migrant workers at more than three times the level observed among non-migrant adults.

 

Children in Forced Labor

Approximately 3.3 million children are estimated to be in forced labour. Treating all child labor statistics as forced labor would therefore overstate one problem while obscuring the mechanisms that make forced labor especially severe.

Children can be exposed through household debt, displacement, trafficking networks, agricultural labor, informal workshops, domestic work and commercial sexual exploitation. Age can also make contract-based protections largely theoretical when the child does not control the decision to work.

Supply-chain screening must consequently distinguish between evidence of child labor and evidence of forced child labor while responding seriously to both. Remediation should prioritize the child's safety and continued access to education rather than simply removing the child from the workplace without support.

 

Sector Exposure to Forced Labor

Where economic structure and labor vulnerability intersect

About 87% of adult forced labour in the private economy is concentrated across five broad sectors: services, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and domestic work. It means their employment structures repeatedly create conditions in which coercion can be hidden, transferred through contractors or imposed on workers with limited alternatives.

Services include a wide range of activities such as hospitality, cleaning, security and outsourced facility work. Manufacturing creates a different visibility problem: a brand may know its direct factory but not every subcontractor, homeworker, raw-material processor or labor agent that supports production during peak demand.

Construction combines temporary projects, layered subcontracting, tied accommodation and migrant recruitment. Workers can move across contractors and sites while responsibility becomes fragmented. Domestic work is distinctive because employment occurs inside private homes, where worker isolation and dependence on an individual employer can be extreme.

These sector patterns show why sector names should be used as risk prompts, not verdicts. Two employers in the same sector can carry very different forced-labor risk depending on how those systems are designed.

Figure 4. Five major sectors account for about 87% of adult forced labour in the private economy, concentrating attention on services, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and domestic work.

 

Supply Chains and the Hidden Geography of Forced Labor

Finished-country labeling can hide the geography where labor risk was created. Labor recruitment can add another geography because workers may be hired in origin countries through brokers before traveling to the production site. Each transition creates a point where traceability can weaken.

The most visible supplier is usually Tier 1: the manufacturer or service provider with a direct commercial relationship to the buyer. Tier 2 may include component makers and processors. Tier 3 and beyond can include farms, mines, vessels, informal workshops, labor contractors and raw-material networks.

The U.S. The recent benchmark includes 204 goods across 82 countries and areas, producing hundreds of country-good combinations where evidence has identified child labor or forced-labor concerns. The list spans commodities, manufacturing inputs and finished goods, showing that risk cannot be confined to a small number of industries.

A strong supply-chain system therefore starts with product decomposition rather than supplier declarations alone. Where a high-risk product-origin combination appears, the next step is verification of the actual supplier and worker conditions, not an assumption that every shipment is tainted.

 

Goods Associated With Elevated Forced-Labor Risk

Product-risk lists become most useful when organized by the labor mechanism behind the product rather than treated as a catalog of bad goods. Agriculture and food products often carry risk at farm and harvest stages where labor contracting, seasonality and remote worksites matter. Minerals and mining can involve informal extraction, isolated sites and complex trader networks.

Electronics introduce another pattern. Migrant-worker recruitment fees can create risk even in sophisticated manufacturing environments. Construction materials can combine extraction, high-temperature processing and labor-intensive manufacturing before they reach a building site.

The existence of a country-good entry should not be interpreted as proof that every supplier producing that item uses forced labor. A buyer should ask where the relevant production stage occurs, which worker groups perform it, how recruitment happens and whether the supplier can trace labor conditions to the part of the chain where the risk is known to arise.

The best product-risk framework therefore links product family to upstream stage, labor mechanism and verification priority. This keeps the data operational.

Product Risk Screening Framework

 

 

Regional Forced Labor Risk

Asia and the Pacific carries the largest absolute regional estimate at approximately 15.1 million people in forced labour. Large supplier networks also mean that global buyers can encounter the region through many tiers of sourcing rather than one direct factory relationship.

Europe and Central Asia accounts for roughly 4.1 million people. Forced-labor risk can therefore appear through migrant recruitment and informal work even where formal labor law is comparatively strong.

Africa's regional estimate is around 3.8 million people. These structural vulnerabilities do not prove forced labor at any specific workplace, but they can increase dependency and reduce the ability of workers to reject exploitative terms.

The Americas account for approximately 3.6 million people in the regional estimate. The region therefore illustrates the difference between domestic prevalence and imported labor risk.

The Arab States have the smallest of these regional totals at roughly 0.9 million people but the highest regional prevalence benchmark, around 5.3 per 1,000 population. Labor migration and employer-linked immigration arrangements are particularly important when examining worker dependency in the region.

Figure 5. Asia and the Pacific carries the largest absolute forced-labor burden, while prevalence produces a different ranking of relative exposure.

 

Country-Level Forced Labor Risk Signals

Country-level comparisons are useful only when the measure is named precisely. Modern slavery is broader than forced labor alone, so these national estimates should be treated as contextual risk indicators rather than as a forced-labor headcount for each country.

India carries the largest estimated number in the country dataset at about 11.05 million people in modern slavery, with an estimated prevalence of 8.0 per 1,000. China follows with about 5.77 million and a prevalence of roughly 4.0 per 1,000. Pakistan combines a large estimated population of about 2.35 million with a prevalence of 10.6 per 1,000 and a high vulnerability score above 80, showing how absolute scale and structural vulnerability can reinforce one another.

Other countries illustrate different combinations. Nigeria's estimated affected population exceeds 1.6 million and its vulnerability score is high, while Bangladesh and the Philippines pair major labor and manufacturing roles with different levels of prevalence, vulnerability and government response.

Major consumer markets can sit in a different position. The United States has a lower estimated prevalence than many countries in the table but an affected population above one million because of its large population. It also has the largest G20 import exposure in the trade-risk dataset, illustrating how domestic prevalence and imported supply-chain exposure answer different questions.

Russia and Türkiye demonstrate why government response should remain visible beside prevalence. The country table is most valuable as a screening layer that determines where sector, supplier and worker-level evidence should be collected next.

Country Risk Comparison

 

 

Vulnerability as an Early Warning System

Vulnerability measures conditions that can make exploitation easier to impose or harder to escape. None is a direct measurement of forced labor. Their value is predictive: when several dimensions are severe at the same time, workers may have fewer alternatives, less bargaining power and weaker access to protection.

Governance issues affect whether rules are enforced consistently and whether workers can obtain remedies. Lack of basic needs increases the pressure to accept risky work, migrate under unfavorable terms or remain in jobs despite abuse. Conflict can intensify displacement, informal work and dependence on brokers.

Afghanistan provides a clear example of a high multidimensional vulnerability profile in the dataset. Governance issues are approximately 74.8, lack of basic needs 49.4, inequality 71.2, disenfranchised groups 73.2 and effects of conflict 98.4 on the 100-point vulnerability scale. The total vulnerability score is above 86. These numbers do not say that 86% of workers are exploited; they show that several structural conditions associated with risk are simultaneously severe.

For procurement teams, vulnerability can be used as an early-warning layer before supplier-specific information is complete. A lower score should not eliminate those controls, particularly in sectors with migrant or informal labor.

Figure 6. Afghanistan illustrates a high multidimensional vulnerability profile, with conflict, governance, inequality and disenfranchisement contributing strongly to the total score.

 

Government Response and Institutional Capacity

Country risk is shaped not only by vulnerability but by the capacity of institutions to prevent exploitation and respond when it occurs. The separation matters because legislation can look strong while implementation remains uneven.

Survivor identification determines whether affected workers can exit exploitation safely and remain out of it. Coordination matters because forced labor can cross borders and administrative responsibilities, particularly when recruitment occurs in one country and employment in another. Risk-factor mitigation addresses the underlying social and economic systems that make workers vulnerable before an individual case is identified.

Business sourcing controls connect public policy to commercial demand. Governments can influence forced-labor risk through procurement rules, import restrictions, disclosure obligations and due-diligence requirements. If recruitment agencies are not monitored, complaints are inaccessible or wage recovery is slow, the legal architecture can fail at the point where workers need it most.

For country comparison, the overall score should therefore be treated as a summary rather than a substitute for pillar-level analysis. One may have stronger survivor support but limited sourcing controls; another may regulate business more aggressively while worker identification remains weak.

Government Response Scorecard

 

 

G20 Import Exposure to Forced-Labor Risk

The trade-risk dataset connects labor conditions to commercial demand in major importing economies. Across the G20 benchmark, approximately US$468 billion in imports are associated with selected goods assessed as at risk of modern slavery. The number does not represent proven forced-labor content in US$468 billion of shipments.

The United States has the largest aggregated exposure in the workbook at approximately US$169.6 billion, followed by Japan at about US$53.1 billion and Germany at roughly US$44.0 billion. The United Kingdom exceeds US$26 billion, while India, South Korea, Canada, Australia and China also record substantial totals.

Electronics from China dominate several of the highest-value combinations. The United States alone records more than US$106 billion in this combination in the benchmark, while Japan and Germany also show large electronics exposure. The pattern demonstrates why product and origin need to remain linked; a generic category such as garments is too broad to guide verification on its own.

Import exposure is therefore best used to prioritize due diligence. High value means a buyer or importing market has commercial leverage as well as risk. The objective is not to eliminate trade with an entire country but to make labor conditions visible at the stages where the risk is known to occur.

Figure 7. The United States has the largest aggregated G20 import exposure in the workbook, followed by Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.

High-Value Import Risk Combinations

 

 

Comparing Prevalence, Vulnerability and Trade Exposure

Prevalence, vulnerability and trade exposure are frequently placed side by side, but they describe different layers of risk. Trade exposure measures how much commercial value flows through product-origin combinations associated with labor-risk concerns. A credible ranking should never treat those dimensions as interchangeable.

A country can have high prevalence and relatively low relevance to a particular buyer because the buyer does not source there. An importing economy can have comparatively low domestic prevalence and still carry major upstream exposure through electronics, garments, seafood or raw materials sourced elsewhere.

The same distinction matters at company level. Risk frameworks should therefore combine contextual indicators with evidence from the actual employment relationship.

The practical priority is to use each metric for the question it answers. Prevalence supports national context, vulnerability supports early warning, trade exposure supports sourcing prioritization, and worker-level verification determines whether coercive practices are actually present.

Risk Profile Comparison

 

 

Corporate Forced Labor Risk Indicators

Corporate controls become useful when they can be tested against worker experience. Employment integrity covers wages, deductions, overtime and the freedom to resign. Worker voice tests whether complaints can be raised independently without retaliation.

Supply-chain controls determine whether the company can see beyond direct suppliers. Labor agencies create a similar problem: the factory may comply with employment standards while the recruiter imposes fees or deception before the worker arrives.

Remediation is the final test. Wage withholding should produce wage recovery. Where a supplier has serious violations, commercial decisions must protect workers from losing pay, housing or immigration status as a consequence of the buyer's response.

This worker-centered approach changes the meaning of a corporate policy. It is whether the operating system makes coercion harder to impose, easier to detect and possible to correct without shifting the cost of remediation back onto workers.

Corporate Warning Signals

 

 

Audit Limits and Worker-Level Verification

Periodic social audits are useful for documenting formal systems, but forced labor often sits in the parts of employment that standard audits see least clearly. Payroll can show wages while hiding recruitment debt. Identity documents may be available during the audit but normally stored by a supervisor in worker housing.

Informal subcontracting creates another blind spot. Workers at those sites may not appear on payroll or production records. Labor agencies can sit outside the facility's formal management system even though they determine who gets hired, what fees are paid and whether workers arrive indebted.

Worker-level verification addresses these weaknesses by changing the evidence source. Independent interviews should occur without managers or recruiters present. Original job offers should be matched against current contracts. Grievance channels should be checked after the audit to see whether workers can use them safely.

The objective is not to discard audits but to use them as one layer. The strongest signal of an effective system is not the absence of findings on one day; it is the ability to detect problems repeatedly and remediate them without retaliation.

 

Building the Forced Labor Risk Benchmark Index

The Forced Labor Risk Benchmark Index converts the report into eight weighted pillars while keeping direct coercion at the center. Worker freedom and coercion receive 18%, the largest weight, because restrictions on movement, resignation, identity documents or threats are closest to the defining condition of forced labor. Recruitment and debt exposure receive 16%, reflecting how fees and deception can create dependency before employment starts.

Wage and employment integrity receive 14%. Worker vulnerability receives 13% to account for the external conditions that reduce alternatives. Supply-chain transparency receives 12% because risk cannot be managed when critical labor agencies, subcontractors and raw-material stages are invisible.

Government and enforcement environment receive 11%, connecting workplace risk to the broader capacity for regulation, survivor support and remedy. Worker voice and grievance access receive 9%; a system that workers cannot use safely is weak even when formal policies are extensive. Remediation and disclosure receive 7%, the smallest weight, but poor remediation should cap the final score because a company that cannot correct known harm cannot claim advanced risk control.

Scores from 0 to 39 indicate critical or poorly controlled conditions. Scores from 40 to 59 indicate high risk with developing controls, 60 to 74 moderate risk with structured controls, 75 to 89 a strong prevention framework, and 90 to 100 advanced worker-centered risk control. Sub-scores should remain visible so that a strong policy environment cannot conceal recruitment debt or restricted worker freedom.

The index is most useful as a decision framework rather than a universal certification. A high score must depend on worker evidence, not on the number of policies a company can produce.

Figure 8. Worker freedom, recruitment and wage integrity receive the largest combined weighting because direct coercion and dependency should dominate the risk score.

 

Forced Labor Risk Challenges

The first challenge is invisibility. Informal workers may never appear in company records. This makes forced-labor data inherently different from a conventional market census in which the measured activity has no incentive to conceal itself.

Definitions create a second challenge. Country-level modern-slavery estimates therefore cannot be presented as forced-labor-only totals without qualification. The strongest analysis keeps the terminology attached to the source metric.

Estimation uncertainty also matters. National prevalence is modeled from available evidence rather than produced by counting every case. Trade-risk lists create another interpretation challenge because an at-risk country-good combination does not prove that every shipment or supplier contains forced-labor inputs.

Certification can add false confidence when it becomes a substitute for worker evidence. Risk systems should therefore be designed to tolerate imperfect information by combining multiple indicators, escalating verification where signals align and updating scores as new evidence becomes available.

 

90-Day Forced Labor Risk Benchmark Plan

Days 1 to 30 should establish the exposure map. Flag known country-good risk combinations and identify where migrant, temporary, seasonal or agency workers are concentrated. The objective is to understand where verification is most valuable before commissioning additional audits.

Days 31 to 60 should shift from mapping to worker conditions. Compare worker interviews with documents rather than accepting either source alone. Where subcontractors are used, verify them directly rather than relying on the primary supplier's statements.

Days 61 to 90 should test remediation. Recruitment-fee cases should produce repayment evidence. Wage issues should show recovery. Grievance follow-up should confirm that workers were not retaliated against after interviews or complaints.

Commercial decisions belong in the final stage but should be worker-centered. Immediate supplier termination can sometimes worsen conditions by removing income, housing or immigration sponsorship before workers are protected.

 

Metrics Brands, Importers and Procurement Teams Should Track

Recruitment metrics should include the share of workers who paid fees, average recruitment cost, number of labor brokers, contract-substitution cases and worker debt complaints. Broker counts should be interpreted carefully: fewer brokers are not automatically safer if the remaining intermediary is unmonitored. The important measure is whether the full recruitment chain is known and worker-paid fees are prevented or repaid.

Workplace metrics should include wage-withholding incidents, unexplained deductions, document-retention cases, involuntary overtime complaints and resignation restrictions. Supply-chain metrics should track the percentage of Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers mapped, subcontractor disclosure, raw-material traceability and exposure to high-risk product-country combinations.

Worker-voice metrics should measure whether anonymous reporting is available, how frequently grievance systems are used, whether retaliation is reported, and how much of the workforce is covered by independent interviews. A grievance channel with zero complaints should not automatically be rated highly; it may indicate that workers do not trust the system.

Lifecycle metrics should include repeat incidents, time to close remediation, value of recruitment fees or wages repaid, recurrence after corrective action and supplier improvement over repeated assessments. These measures distinguish activity from outcomes. A company can conduct many audits without reducing risk if the same problems reappear or remediation never reaches workers.

 

How Forced Labor Risk Changes by Business Model

Raw-material producers face risk through informal work, seasonal recruitment, remote worksites and commodity traceability. Processors and manufacturers face different pressures: migrant labor, overtime, labor agencies, unauthorized subcontracting and short production windows can create dependency even in formal facilities.

Exporters and trading companies control documentation and supplier relationships but may mix material from several origins. Their core risk is source opacity. Aggressive price pressure, short lead times and last-minute order changes can encourage suppliers to use labor arrangements outside the approved system. A forced-labor policy is therefore stronger when responsible purchasing practices support the labor requirements imposed on suppliers.

Retailers and marketplaces face third-party vendor risk, product-origin disclosure and large catalogs that can make category screening difficult. Financial institutions face a different exposure through clients, project finance and portfolios operating in high-risk sectors or regions.

Responsibility is therefore distributed across the commercial chain. The best control framework assigns each business model a specific set of evidence rather than assuming one universal audit program fits every stage.

 

The Forced Labor Risk Report FAQ

What is forced labor?

Forced labor is work or service extracted under threat, penalty or comparable coercion when the worker has not offered the labor freely or cannot leave freely. The defining issue is not whether a contract exists but whether genuine consent and freedom remain throughout the employment relationship.

How many people are in forced labor globally?

The global benchmark estimates 27.6 million people in forced labour. About 17.3 million are in private-economy exploitation, 6.3 million in forced commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million in state-imposed forced labour.

Is forced labor the same as modern slavery?

No. Modern slavery is commonly used as a broader umbrella that includes forced labor and forced marriage. Country-level modern-slavery prevalence figures should therefore not be described as forced-labor-only counts unless the underlying measure specifically isolates forced labor.

Which workers face greater forced-labor risk?

Risk can be elevated for migrant workers, indebted recruits, displaced people, informal workers, isolated domestic workers and groups with limited access to institutions or bargaining power. Adult migrant workers have a forced-labour prevalence more than three times that of non-migrant adults in the global benchmark.

Which industries have the greatest forced-labor exposure?

Five broad sectors account for about 87% of adult forced labour in the private economy: services, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and domestic work. The statistic is a sector-level concentration signal, not a claim that every employer in those sectors has the same risk.

Does a high-risk country automatically mean a supplier uses forced labor?

No. Country prevalence and vulnerability are screening indicators. Supplier-specific conclusions require evidence about recruitment, wages, mobility, worker voice, subcontracting and the ability to leave employment freely.

Does a low-risk country guarantee a clean supply chain?

No. A company in a lower-risk market can source materials or components from higher-risk locations, use migrant labor recruited through debt, or subcontract work to less visible facilities. Supply-chain mapping remains necessary.

How do recruitment fees create forced-labor risk?

Fees can place workers in debt before employment starts. If the worker needs months of wages to repay the recruiter or fears losing a large upfront payment by resigning, financial dependency can become a barrier to leaving the job.

Is passport retention a major warning sign?

Yes. Worker control of identity and travel documents is a core freedom indicator. Temporary handling for legitimate administrative purposes differs from retention that prevents workers from accessing their documents or leaving freely.

Can audits prove that forced labor is absent?

No single audit can prove absence. Audits can verify systems and records, but recruitment debt, coached interviews, off-site subcontracting, document control and retaliation may remain hidden. Worker-level and repeated verification are needed.

What does an at-risk product listing mean?

It means evidence has identified child-labor or forced-labor concerns in a specific country-good combination. It does not mean every unit or every supplier producing that good is tainted. The listing should trigger targeted due diligence.

How should companies measure improvement?

Improvement should be measured through outcomes such as fee repayment, wage recovery, worker control of documents, accessible grievance channels, lower recurrence, better subcontractor visibility and demonstrated freedom to resign without penalty.

Final Takeaway

Approximately 27.6 million people are estimated to be in forced labour globally, including 17.3 million in private-economy exploitation, 6.3 million in forced commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million in state-imposed forced labour. Around 3.3 million children are affected, and private actors impose the large majority of forced labour. Adult migrant workers face more than three times the prevalence observed among non-migrant adults.

The commercial system matters because forced labor generates an estimated US$236 billion in illegal annual profits in the private economy. Five broad sectors account for about 87% of adult forced labour in that part of the economy, while global trade connects consumer markets to risk several tiers upstream. The G20 import-risk dataset places hundreds of billions of dollars of trade in product-origin combinations that warrant deeper screening.

No single statistic can identify a clean or abusive supplier. Country prevalence provides context, vulnerability shows where workers may have fewer alternatives, government response indicates institutional capacity, and trade exposure identifies where commercial leverage is concentrated. Worker-level evidence is what determines whether employment remains voluntary in practice.

The defining measure is worker freedom: entering employment without coercive debt, understanding the terms, controlling identity documents and movement, receiving owed pay, raising concerns safely, and leaving without threats or prohibitive penalties. Strong risk systems protect these freedoms, detect failures early and restore money, documents and decision-making power when harm occurs.