Governments began to react to the increased power of organised crime and the growth of illegal trafficking, including in human beings, during the 1990s. This drive culminated in 2000 with the passage of the Palermo Convention to combat organised crime and its Protocol to combat human trafficking. Since then, the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery has received political attention and millions have been poured into different anti-trafficking initiatives around the world. National penal laws have been adopted and national referral mechanisms have been set up. Judges, special police units and border guards were trained to identify victims, while international cooperation and coordination improved through new intergovernmental platforms such as Frontex and Eurojust in Europe. Nevertheless, there is no indication that the level of ‘modern-day slaves’ in the world has decreased due to these developments. On the contrary, recent estimates suggest that the number has been rising. One can only conclude that, by and large, government responses have been ineffective.
Strong laws, weak protections
At least part of the explanation can be found in the broader socio-economic and political context of recent decades. While state interventions to combat trafficking have been strengthened in the criminal justice sphere, labour markets have been persistently deregulated and employment protections weakened. Nothing has been done to stop informal employment from growing in the uncontrolled shadows of the global economy. At the same time, excessive use of temporary and guest worker schemes, self-employment and indirect employment constructions through intermediaries and complex subcontracting have made work more precarious.
In addition, governments negotiate bilateral agreements in order to promote employment abroad, hoping that the ensuing remittances will stimulate development. Most bilateral agreements relating to migrant labour, however, are negotiated with a complete lack of transparency. More often than not they fail to protect migrant workers’ rights while undermining existing labour protection systems. In the rare cases where origin country governments include some protection measures for their migrant workforce in the negotiations, such as the Philippines, the subsequent implementation of these protections is rarely monitored.
