To draw attention to protecting workers from Central Asian countries who migrate abroad to make a living, the Solidarity Center was part of a broad coalition that organized a high-level conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to coincide with the UN World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. The two-day conference, held July 30-31, provided a forum for sharing best practices and strategies to combat forced labor, and brought together regional and global civil society groups, national institutions and organizations, human trafficking experts, and U.S. government representatives.
“Cooperation on labor protections has the potential to ensure safer and fairer working conditions for everyone in the region,” said Rudi Porter, regional program director for Europe and Central Asia at the Solidarity Center.
As a percentage of the population, forced labor in Central Asia and Europe is the second highest in the world, estimated at more than 4 million people. The US State Department's 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report details forced labor across Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, where debt-bonded forced migrant labor is said to be on the rise. Globally, there were nearly 8 million international migrants from Central Asian countries by mid-2020, more than 60% of whom were in Russia. A 2021 Solidarity Center-supported study of hundreds of Kyrgyz female migrant workers in 19 Russian cities documented harsh conditions for these women in the workplace, including sexual violence.
The conference, titled “Strengthening National and International Partnerships to End Trafficking in Persons,” was co-hosted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Delegation of the European Union to the United States, the U.S. Embassy to Kyrgyzstan, and international donor Winrock International. It also included Solidarity Center partners: labor rights organization Kazakhstan International Bureau of Human Rights (KIBHR), Insan Leylek and the Migrant Workers Union in Kyrgyzstan, and Istikbori Avrod in Uzbekistan. It was co-hosted by the European Union, OSCE, UNODC, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Solidarity Center participated in a panel on combating forced labor through the promotion of fundamental labor rights in the region, highlighting the findings of a recently completed study that found that approximately 60 percent of Central Asian migrant workers surveyed did not know what forced labor was, making them vulnerable to targets by unscrupulous employers and recruiters. Solidarity Center staff also used the panel to present recommendations that emphasized the role of labor inspectorates, trade unions, and private and state-run recruitment agencies in combating forced labor.
The conference builds on the landmark Solidarity Centers meeting held last year in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where a Joint Regional Action Plan on the Eradication of Forced Labor and Promoting Labor Rights was adopted by stakeholders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, including government ministries and agencies, the non-governmental and civil society sectors, and international organizations.
According to a report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), forced labor is increasingly occurring in the private economy, especially in labor-intensive and poorly regulated sectors such as construction, agriculture, fishing, domestic work, and mining. In 2021, 28 million people worldwide were involved in forced labor, a figure that has increased by more than one-third in just five years. Globally, forced labor in the private economy is estimated to generate $236 billion in illicit profits annually, an increase of more than $64 billion since 2014.
The UN's 2018 Global Compact on Migration sets out a collaborative framework for achieving safe migration within a rights-based framework, and includes a process for implementation and review of UN member states' progress on the issue.
