Total illegal profits generated from forced labour in the private economy amount to an estimated $236 billion annually, resulting from almost $10,000 profit per victim, a new report from the International Labour Organization has found.

The ILO report titled ‘Profits and Poverty: The economics of forced labour’ revealed on Tuesday found that the total amount of illegal profits from forced labour has risen by $64 billion or 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.

Total annual illegal profits from forced labour are highest in Europe and Central Asia $84 billion, followed by Asia and the Pacific $62 billion, the Americas $52 billion, Africa $20 billion, and the Arab States $18 billion.

The report mentioned that forced commercial sexual exploitation accounted 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.

After forced commercial sexual exploitation, the sector with the highest annual illegal profits from forced labour is industry, at $35 billion, followed by services $20.8 billion, agriculture $5.0 billion, and domestic work $2.6 billion, it found.

‘These illegal profits are the wages that rightfully belong in the pockets of workers but instead remain in the hands of their exploiters, as a result of their coercive practices,’ ILO said.

According to the study, there were 27.6 million people in forced labour on any given day in 2021 and the figure translates to 3.5 people for every thousand people in the world.

Between 2016 and 2021, the number of people in forced labour increased by 2.7 million, resulting in a rise in the prevalence of forced labour from 3.4 to 3.5 per thousand people, the report showed.

It also found that Asia and the Pacific was host to more than half or 15.1 million of the global total forced labour, followed by Europe and Central Asia 4.1 million, Africa 3.8 million, the Americas 3.6 million, and the Arab States 0.9 million.

But this regional ranking changes considerably when forced labour is expressed in terms of prevalence that is as a proportion of the population.

By this measure, forced labour is highest in the Arab States 5.3 per thousand people, followed by Europe and Central Asia 4.4 per thousand, the Americas and Asia and the Pacific both at 3.5 per thousand, and Africa 2.9 per thousand, ILO identified.

The ILO report stressed the urgent need for investment in enforcement measures to stem illegal profit flows and hold perpetrators accountable.

It recommended strengthening legal frameworks, providing training for enforcement officials extending labour inspection into high-risk sectors, and better coordination between labour and criminal law enforcement.

‘Yet forced labour cannot be ended through law enforcement measures alone, enforcement actions must be part of a comprehensive approach that prioritizes addressing root causes and safeguarding victims,’ the report underscored.

People in forced labour are subject to multiple forms of coercion, the deliberate and systematic withholding of wages being amongst the most common, ILO director-general Gilbert F Houngbo said in a statement.

He said that the forced labour perpetuated cycles of poverty and exploitation and strikes at the heart of human dignity.

‘We now know that the situation has only got worse. The international community must urgently come together to take action to end this injustice, safeguard workers’ rights, and uphold the principles of fairness and equality for all,’ Houngbo said.