New EU Directive against Forced Labor: The Forced Labor Portal

What Is Forced Labor and Why It Matters

Forced Labor is the modern face of slavery. In Forced Labor situations, people are forced to work against their will and cannot freely refuse or leave their work, or are forced by the personal situation of weakness to accept unsafe or abusive working conditions and salaries (if ever) under what legislation requires.

It is a severe human rights violation and, as said, the current expression a form of modern slavery. There are millions of people in forced labor situations, an estimated 49.6 million people worldwide live in situations of modern slavery on any given day. Out of this global total, forced labor accounts for 27.6 million people, which constitutes 55.6% of all modern slavery cases.

These figures come from the baseline Global Estimates of Modern Slavery report published jointly by the International Labor Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which also derivates this interesting article on improving estimations of Human Trafficking using the date collected.

The Scale of Modern Slavery Worldwide

Who Is Most Affected?

About 17.3 million victims are trapped in industries like manufacturing, construction, agriculture, and domestic work; 6.3 million people are victims of sexual exploitation, with women and girls making up nearly 80% of this category; and 3.9 million people are forced to work directly by state authorities, including prison labor or military abuse.

Children and Migrant Workers at Greater Risk

Children account for 12% (3.3 million) of all people in forced labor. More than half of these children are trapped specifically in commercial sexual exploitation. Women and girls make up 11.8 million of those experiencing forced labor. Migrant workers face a three times higher risk of falling into forced labor than non-migrant workers due to documentation issues and lack of legal protection.

Modern slavery is not confined to low-income nations. More than half (52%) of all forced labor takes place in upper-middle-income or high-income countries, heavily driven by global consumer supply chains. Regionally, the Asia and the Pacific region has the highest raw volume of forced labor (15.1 million), while the Arab States region features the highest prevalence rate relative to its population (5.3 per thousand people).

But many cases of Forced Labor are regularly spotted into the European Union: Last summer there was a case in the Italian fashion and luxury industry that made its place of the newspapers, and regularly there have been cases, mostly related to immigrant workers, in France (Champagne region, grape harvesting), Finland (red berries harvesting), southern Spain (Almería) and Portugal (Odemira) on the intensive greenhouse fruit and vegetable industries, and so on.

The EU Forced Labor Regulation (EUFLR) Explained

What the Regulation Bans

The people of Europe have expressed many times their strong reaction to these scandals, and the European Union have said enough to these abuses. To stop these internal and external human rights failures, the European Union passed the EU Forced Labor Regulation (EUFLR), which explicitly bans the sale, import, and export of any goods made using forced labor anywhere on the EU market.

Enforcement Powers and the Risk Database

Backed by a centralized public risk database, national customs and market authorities will have the legal power to pull tainted products from store shelves and destroy them.

Key Resources and Further Reading

The articles below describe this new directive extensively:

• European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights Analysis Doc
• Global Labor Institute, Cornell University Doc
• Ethical Trade Initiative Article
• Corporate Compliance Initiative Article

While this link to the European Union’s Forced Labour Portal explains the roadmap and how to prepare to be ready by the date of enforcement of this directive, by the mid of December of 2027.

Preparing for the December 2027 Enforcement Deadline

This is a great opportunity to improve the situation of forced labor in the European Union, if this portal really allows in the future to ensure that products made with forced labor have no place on the EU market, cannot be imported and cannot be produced or exported from the EU. It is not only an upcoming compliance requirement, it is our moral duty to help avoid a centuries long fundamental offense to Human Rights and the dignity of people, perpetuated only for the benefit of a few taking advantage of the vulnerability of other human beings. All companies should prepare for this new compliance request and must do so in a systematic way, understanding their supply chain and setting the processes that will continuously monitor their activities as per the law’s upcoming requirements.