The Global Slavery Index 2023

Executive Summary (Part 4)

​The urgent need to move from intention to real action 
World leaders agreed on an ambitious agenda to address the world’s most intractable problems when they adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) nearly 10 years ago. This included a commitment to ending modern slavery, forced labour, and human trafficking by 2030 (Target 8.7). In 2018, we warned that progress towards ending modern slavery was too slow to achieve this goal. In the period since, a significant increase in the number of people living in modern slavery and a stagnation in government action highlights that the global community is even further from achieving the goals they agreed to make a priority. This sobering picture of the current state of progress is not necessarily a signal for the future. In fact, it likely reveals truths that can point the way to success. 
 
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world largely awakened to the need for an overhaul of current systems in order to curtail the worst impacts of the pandemic and to better respond to the climate emergency. The impacts of COVID-19 drew global attention to the points at which vulnerable populations fall through the gaps and to the structural inequalities that advocates have long highlighted as core drivers of modern slavery but that governments have failed to meaningfully address. Despite the uncertainty created during the height of the pandemic, a great deal of hope lies in an important lesson that it revealed — that the global community is, in fact, capable of rapidly responding to crisis at scale. 
 
When it comes to addressing modern slavery, the global community must move from intention to action without delay. This requires reinvigorating the movement to end modern slavery, with survivors leading the way to identify lasting solutions. It requires recognising that the world’s great challenges are all interconnected: modern slavery, climate change, conflict, poverty, gender inequality, and racial injustice. None can be effectively addressed in isolation. Recognising this interconnectedness, and resolving to act on it, presents a huge opportunity to ensure the resources mobilised go further and have lasting impact for the world’s most vulnerable people. 
 
Walk Free 2023. Global Slavery Index 2023. Minderoo Foundation Ltd. Australia.