A warning has gone out to freight forwarders to be vigilant about human traffickers exploiting supply chains to move people illegally. According to Frazer Hunt, a leading transport lawyer in Australia, modern slavery is a grave concern, with many countries lacking the necessary legislation to deal with criminals. “The likelihood of finding modern slavery in any given supply chain is more than 70%. If you have not identified it in your supply chain, it is likely that you simply have not looked in the right places yet,” he said. Hunt said the first step was identifying the risk in their operations. It is estimated there are currently around 40 million people enslaved around the world. According to Narit Gessler of Free the Slaves, an antislavery and anti-human trafficking non-profit, slavery generates around $150 billion for traffickers every year. “About 70% of the 40 million people who are enslaved are women,” she said. “At least 25% or some ten million slaves are children under the age of 18.” She said while slavery was often associated with sex work, the reality was that millions of people were forced to work in factories, mines and on farms. It crossed a multitude of sectors and industries with most slaves deprived of their personal freedom and unable to leave or to stop working. “No matter where the slavery is taking place, the industry or sector it involves, be it men, women or children, the one common denominator is logistics. We have to work harder to develop clean corridors, making sure that at every level of the supply chain when something moves – not just the slaves themselves – the products obtained or manufactured through slavery are rooted out.” She said the ultimate goal was to ensure every time a piece of cargo moved anywhere it was a clean move involving no slavery. This was not the case at the moment. “We therefore need a higher duty of vigilance from the logistics industry,” said Gessler. Katie Modrau of antitrafficking NGO A21, said in African ports there was a need for high vigilance for people being transported illegally in containers or on vessels. “We recently found 32 men on a vessel docked at a South African port in atrocious conditions with no access to clean water or food. “
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No matter where the slavery is taking place the one common denominator is logistics. – Narit Gessler