Addressing Modern Slavery, by Justine Nolan (Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales) and Martijn Boersma (Lecturer in the Faculty of Business at the University of Technology Sydney).
ISBN: 978-1-74-223643-8
Publisher: UNSW Press, September 2019
Length: 262 pages including 47 pages of endnotes and an index, though no bibliography
(A shortened version of this review was published by The Journal of Human Trafficking in December 2019.)
Addressing Modern Slavery starts with familiar statistics about the “estimated 40.3 million people enslaved around the world” and the daunting task of releasing 10,000 of those each day if we are to reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 of eradicating modern slavery. In this book, Nolan and Boersma combine statistics, case studies and conceptual reflections to show how concerted efforts by governments, businesses and civil society could accomplish that daunting task.
After summarising the book, this review will offer a critique of the current dominance of economic and supply chain strategies in the anti-slavery movement: a dominance that is reflected in the focus of Nolan and Boersma’s book.
In Chapter 1, Nolan and Boersma outline the complex challenges of modern slavery, commencing with an admission that, despite growing public awareness about the problem, there is no globally recognised definition of modern slavery. They rightly question the connotations of the term “slavery,” especially the way it establishes a triad of victim, exploiter and rescuer. They note that such a framework can “deny agency to those exploited.” On the other hand, they omit to note that this conceptualisation also denies agency to the exploiters. I will say more about the importance of that omission later.
On the definitional issue, the authors propose that “modern slavery should be seen as part of a continuum of exploitation” (p. 10). I think that’s a good approach, though as with any continuum, it raises a boundary issue: where do we draw the line above which exploitation should be counted as slavery? This is one of the fundamental challenges for any attempt to measure the prevalence of modern slavery.
Nolan and Boersma include a vast array of examples, not only in this chapter but throughout the book. They document cases and statistics ranging from seasonal harvest workers in Australia, hand car washes across Britain, fishing in Thailand, preparation for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, debt bondage in Cambodian brick kilns, cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, prison labour in the USA, state-sanctioned forced labour in North Korea, and so on. I believe one of the book’s biggest accomplishments is the thoroughness with which these examples have been compiled. As a contribution to the anti-slavery community the authors’ commitment to documenting the breadth of labour exploitation globally, as well as documenting the current range of commercial and legislative responses to that exploitation, is enormously valuable.
On a slightly negative note, many of the case studies are typeset in a format that interrupts the flow of the main text. I found it frustrating to have to skip over pages in order to maintain the continuity of the main text, and then skip backwards to read the case studies once there was a break in the main text.
Another theme raised in the first chapter is that “the global economy is built on the backs of low-paid and exploited workers” (p. 22). This theme is taken up in more detail in Chapter 2, which focusses on the role of supply chains in the global economy.
The chapter ends with the claim that “progress in the fight against modern slavery can only be achieved if this cycle is broken” (p. 71), but after several readings I am still unsure what the structure of that “cycle” is, or whether it is actually cyclical.
Chapter 3 discusses the possibility of corporations developing their social conscience. Nolan and Boersma are emphatic that the business sector must play a role in ending modern slavery and provide some examples of companies that take corporate social responsibility (CSR) seriously. Nevertheless, from their perspective the whole area of CSR is full of question marks. Drawing on Milton Friedman’s free-market analysis, they recognize the common assumption that the one and only responsibility of a business is to make money for its shareholders. How then can a corporation make a business case for human rights? In answer, the authors accept that although some pressure can be brought to bear via global compacts, national laws, and codes of ethics, the patchwork of laws, guidelines, ad hoc naming and shaming, and self-regulation have not been effective levers to date.
Given the limitations of CSR, Chapter 4 considers the role law can play in regulating the business of modern slavery. The chapter outlines guidelines (‘soft law’) from the UN and OECD, and laws that specifically target modern slavery in the USA, the UK, France, and Australia. For the most part, these laws seek to increase the transparency of labour exploitation on the assumption that visibility will act as an incentive for corporations to address any human rights issues in their operations and the operations of their suppliers. Nolan and Boersma point our several problems with that assumption and conclude that although these laws “shine a spotlight on modern slavery in supply chains” which is a useful first step, they “don’t force companies to change their practices or remedy the problems” (p. 146).
In a section headed “Leveraging change”, Nolan and Boersma then start the task of proposing how legal reform, other government activities, business, and civil society can play complementary roles to ensure sustained cultural change. In that collaborative mix, consumers, investors, and worker organisations also play a part.
Chapter 5 offers a raft of suggestions about how modern slavery can be, and is being, fought. These are too loosely structured to be called recommendations, but include:
- The importance of continuing innovation around holistic approaches that treat root causes rather than only the surface-level symptoms
- The need for governments to …
- act proactively to address underlying causes of human rights issues rather than just reactively via criminal prosecutions
- become more prescriptive and punitive about how companies should avoid and remediate forced labour
- provide victims with access to remedies for human rights abuses
- use competition laws and minimal wage requirements to counter the power of large companies at the top of the supply chain.
- promote alternative business models such as cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises
- more conscientiously examine their own supply chains.
- The need for companies to …
- incorporate an anti-slavery stance as part of their brand and market reputation
- move beyond an instrumental view so that their anti-slavery stance becomes substantiative rather than symbolic
- move beyond the drive for short term profit to a stance that promotes long term value and sustainability
- proactively engage in long-term commitments with suppliers in locations with strong human rights records, who invest in their employees’ welfare
- The need for civil society to …
- raise awareness about modern slavery through collaboration with media, including providing a platform for survivors to tell their stories
- pressure companies to behave responsibly
- facilitate worker-driven social responsibility
- encourage investors to include human rights as an investment criterion
- encourage consumers to become more vigilant and committed to ethical purchasing decisions
- The application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, data sharing, so-called “big data” analysis, and blockchain.
Nolan and Boersma’s analysis in Addressing Modern Slavery is detailed and insightful, especially within the confines of the currently dominant strategic direction that the global anti-slavery community has adopted. Conversely, there are two significant limitations to this book, limitations that can also be seen in that dominant anti-slavery strategy.
First, the forms of modern slavery being addressed are restricted to forced labour exploitation and, to some extent, state-imposed forced labour. The book is silent about forced marriage, people being trafficked for sex, the growing problem of online sexual exploitation of children, and child soldiers. In the typology used by the Global Slavery Index (GSI), forced marriage accounts for 15.4 million of the 40.3 million total. Forced sexual exploitation takes another percentage off the total. Child soldiers, while acknowledged as part of modern slavery by the GSI, are explicitly excluded from the GSI estimates (at least in the 2018 report). In the absence of those categories, the forced labour exploitation that Nolan and Boersma focus on constitutes maybe only half of the cases of modern slavery.
These other forms of modern slavery exhibit much different modes of operation than labour exploitation. Whereas most forced labour is used to produce components that can be processed through manufacturing and distribution channels to be eventually sold to remote consumers, the core of sexual exploitation is the direct demand for a personal service. Certainly, people may be traded multiple times before they are delivered to the final consumer—arguably they are more extensively trafficked than victims of other forms of forced labour—but they are not “processed” in the way that cobalt or clothing are. In this case the person is the product rather than simply providing the labour that produces the product. The nature of sexual abuse leads to a very low price elasticity of demand, making that form of modern slavery especially resistant to economic interventions. Forced marriage is driven by cultural values rather than economics. The recruitment of child soldiers is a product of abusive ideologies that see youth as easy to brainwash.
As a consequence, Nolan and Boersma’s description of modern slavery assumes a particular economic driver and misses substantial aspects of the problem. The book may more appropriately be titled Addressing Forced Labour Exploitation.
I believe this is not just a criticism of the scope of this book, for Nolan and Boersma are reflecting a perspective taken by large parts of today’s anti-slavery movement. For instance, the same assumption underlies the strategy of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), which is to end modern slavery by making it economically unprofitable. The profit motive as a driver of labour exploitation is also a key assumption behind most recent modern slavery legislation.
This is not to say economic interventions will be totally ineffective: that is still an open empirical question. The hypothesis has not yet been well tested. A large proportion of those who perpetrate modern slavery probably are motivated by profit and may respond to economic pressures in the way we hope. However, even in cases where such interventions are shown to reduce the prevalence of specific forms of modern slavery in specific locations, there is a high risk that the abuse will resurface in another form or simply be displaced to another location.
The second limitation of this book is the range of options it considers as reasonable interventions. In part, this is a consequence of the emphasis on forced labour exploitation. If the problem being addressed is that workers are misused so that goods can be produced cheaply to satisfy supply contracts with large corporations and ultimately to satisfy the demands of consumers, then it makes perfect sense to muster the resources of consumer pressure, investment pressure, legal restrictions, corporate social conscience, and worker empowerment to regulate global supply chains.
This is not, however, the only possible approach, nor the only historical approach. The book may more appropriately be titled Addressing Forced Labour Exploitation through the Collaborative Regulation of Supply Chains. But given its current title shouldn’t alternatives— Kevin Bales’ Ending Slavery (2007) describes a variety of other approaches—be at least canvassed?
What, for instance, do the authors think about the many organizations and millions of dollars spent each year on the rescue and rehabilitation of victims? This approach to addressing modern slavery is not mentioned. Perhaps it is not an effective strategy, but surely it needs to be discussed.
Only the briefest of comments are made about the dearth of convictions for forced labour and trafficking offences (pp. 156 and 167). In contrast, Gary Haugen claims (The Locust Effect, 2014) that improving the effectiveness of law enforcement needs to be a major component of the anti-slavery strategy.
What about the importance of reducing corruption, reducing poverty, reducing the human displacement caused by wars and environmental collapse?
I believe all of these issues need to be kept on the table in strategic discussions about how to address modern slavery. While Nolan and Boersma make passing references to complex solutions and holistic approaches, their depiction in this book places the supply chain strategy on centre-stage and leaves alternative approaches in the wings.
As noted already, this is not primarily a criticism of the book Addressing Modern Slavery, but a criticism of the current state of thinking about how we intend to end modern slavery, which I believe this book accurately reflects.
The major gap in current anti-slavery discourse, and in this book, is any robust analysis of the role of slave owners and human traffickers. The perpetrators, or exploiters, are implicitly assumed to be an absolutely intractable obstacle cocooned in an impermeable black box. We do not know what goes on inside that black box, and although we can impose various pressures to constrain the box from the outside, we cannot otherwise influence what happens inside that box.
An old form of that assumption was that perpetrators were morally corrupt, irredeemable, and deserving of extreme punishment. If they were all killed or imprisoned then the problem of slavery would go away. The more recent, capitalist, version of the assumption is that the perpetrators, like everyone, are solely motivated by profit. If we can only adjust the supply and demand equation properly then the problem of slavery would go away.
These simplistic assumptions about perpetrators—that they are immutable, that they are evil, or that they are profit-driven—are significantly uninformed for there has been almost no research into why slave owners and traffickers behave as they do. A rare exception is the investigation by Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick (What Slaveholders Think, 2017) among employers of bonded labour in India. Choi-Fitzpatrick’s research needs to be replicated a dozen times in different locations and for different forms of slavery. Psychologists and sociologists need to study the actual, rather than assumed, drivers of perpetrators’ behaviour. How else can we expect to know what types of intervention are likely to change those behaviours?
Nolan and Boersma’s Addressing Modern Slavery is a valuable description of one strategy for dealing with labour exploitation. Today’s anti-slavery movement, however, needs to broaden its discourse beyond this dominant economic narrative. If we are to truly address the breadth of abuses that constitute modern slavery, then other strategies, particularly perpetrator-centric strategies, must also be considered.