Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Towards Decent Work for All

以“强迫劳动”、“抵押劳动”、“童工”、“人口贩运”和“现代奴隶制”等术语概括的严重劳动剥削被广泛认为是当代发展的主要挑战。事实上，据说仅印度就拥有世界上最多的现代奴隶（1830万）（2016年全球奴隶制指数），包括南亚、非洲和拉丁美洲在内的许多地区在实现“人人享有体面工作”方面面临着最严峻的挑战。尽管各国政府和民间社会谴责这种做法是“全球化的另一面”，是对人类尊严的侮辱，并通过了反奴隶制和反贩运立法，自世纪之交以来在反奴隶制政策上花费了超过15亿英镑，但世界各国领导人仍然将“强迫劳动”、“人口贩运”和“现代奴隶制”置于可持续发展议程的核心，可持续发展目标8.7直接呼吁消除这些现象。这反映了这样一个事实，即旨在使世界摆脱严重剥削的政策一直受到缺乏细致、复杂的经验性理解的阻碍。“超越贩运和奴役网络”（BTS）的存在正是为了填补这一空白。防弹少年团是一个由来自全球北方和全球南方的学者和民间社会组织组成的多学科团体，他们是可持续发展目标8.7所针对的严重剥削问题的专家。防弹少年团成立于2014年，主要通过openDemocracy.net运营，这是一个建立在英国的“数字公地”，每年拥有超过900万的独立访客。它将学术研究的严谨性与新闻报道的清晰性和政治倡导的即时性相结合，将学者、政策制定者和民间社会组织聚集在一起，致力于促进对全球剥削、脆弱性和不自由劳动力的结构性、政治、经济和社会根源的理解，并制定政策来解决这些问题。仅在过去两年，防弹少青团就发表了200多位撰稿人的300多篇文章，并与人权观察、国际劳工组织和英国反奴隶制专员等大型机构展开了公开辩论。防弹少青团现在打算扩大这项工作，直接参与南亚（印度）、非洲（南非）和拉丁美洲（墨西哥）等发展中国家的研究和活动。BTS将在这些国家召开区域研讨会，汇集所有相关利益攸关方，包括关键的学术声音、高级政治官员、非政府组织、联合国、劳工和商业组织、捐助者、民间社会和具有严重劳动剥削专业知识的个人。在这些研讨会的同时，它将为地方和区域民间社会举办能力建设培训，协调围绕可持续发展目标8.7的知识地形的联合测绘，并联合制定一项研究议程，为政策制定者（特别是南方国家的政策制定者）提供实现这一目标所需的概念和经验工具，促进南南知识共享。BTS将通过为ESRC-GCRF起草一份题为《可持续发展目标8.7：理解和解决强迫劳动、人口贩运和现代奴役问题全球研究议程》的报告（鉴于其重点关注移民与发展、不平等和包容性增长）来结束其扩大的网络活动。这将与参与可持续发展目标8.7的全球利益攸关方广泛分享，研讨会会议记录和最新研究也将分享。大众传播将通过防弹少年团网站openDemocracy.net，使用文本、播客、视频以及有针对性的社会媒体战略。BTS还将为英国的现代奴隶制研究中心奠定基础，该中心将把英国定位为应对这一发展挑战的世界领导者，从而为英国未来的捐助者和研究政策提供信息。

The severe labour exploitation encapsulated in terms like 'forced labour', 'bonded labour', 'child labour', 'human trafficking' and 'modern slavery' is widely regarded as a major contemporary development challenge. Indeed India alone is said to have to have the highest number of modern slaves (18.3 million) in the world (Global Slavery Index 2016) and many regions including South Asia, Africa and Latin America face the gravest challenges in achieving "decent work for all". Although governments and civil society have decried such practices as 'the underside of globalisation' and as an affront to human dignity, passed anti-slavery and anti-trafficking legislation, and spent over £1.5 billion since the turn of the century on anti-slavery policy, the world's leaders have nevertheless placed 'forced labour', 'human trafficking' and 'modern slavery' at the heart of the Sustainable Development Agenda, with SDG 8.7 calling directly for their eradication. This reflects the fact that policy aimed at ridding the world of severe exploitation is consistently hampered by a dearth of nuanced, sophisticated empirical understandings. The Beyond Trafficking and Slavery network (BTS) exists to fill precisely this gap. BTS is a multi-disciplinary group of academics and civil society organisations from the global north and global south who are experts on the severe exploitation targeted by SDG 8.7. Established in 2014, BTS operates primarily through openDemocracy.net, an established 'digital commons' based in the UK that commands an annual readership of over nine million unique visitors. Combining the rigour of academic scholarship with the clarity of journalism and the immediacy of political advocacy, it brings together scholars, policy-makers, and civil society organisations keen to advance understanding of, and policies to address, the structural, political, economic, and social root causes of global exploitation, vulnerability and unfree labour. In the past two years alone, BTS has published over 300 articles from more than 200 contributors, and entered into public debate with large institutional actors including Human Rights Watch, the International Labour Organisation and the UK's Anti-Slavery Commissioner. BTS now intends to expand this work by engaging directly with research and activism in developing countries from South Asia (India), Africa (South Africa) and Latin America (Mexico). BTS will convene regional workshops in these countries bringing together all relevant stakeholders, including critical academic voices, high-level political officials, NGOs, the UN, labour and business organisations, donors, civil society and individuals with expertise on severe labour exploitation. It will host capacity-building trainings for local and regional civil society alongside these workshops, co-ordinate joint mapping of the knowledge terrain around SDG 8.7, and joint articulation of a research agenda that can equip policy-makers, particularly in the global south, with the conceptual and empirical tools necessary to achieve it, fostering south-south knowledge sharing in the process. BTS will conclude its expanded network activities by drafting a report for the ESRC-GCRF (given its focus on migration and development, inequalities, and inclusive growth) entitled The Global Research Agenda for SDG 8.7: Understanding and Addressing Forced Labour, Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery. This will be shared widely with global stakeholders engaged around SDG 8.7, as will workshop proceedings and the latest research. Public dissemination will take place through the BTS website at openDemocracy.net, using text, podcasts, and video, as well as a targeted social media strategy. BTS will also lay the foundations for a UK-based Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery, which will position the UK as a world leader in responding to this development challenge, in turn informing future UK donor and research policy.