Sexual Exploitation Drives Forced Labor Profits

Forced labor is estimated to generate illegal profits summing to $236 billion in 2024 alone, with exploiters making at average of $9,995 per victim. This is according to a new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO), released Tuesday. This profit represents the wages that “rightfully belong in the pockets of workers that instead remain in the hands of their exploiters as a result of their coercive practices.” It is even a low estimate, since the ILO does not include further illegal profits made through means such as recruitment fees or the money from avoided taxes. Forced labor is here defined as “work that is both involuntary and under penalty or menace of coercion”.

As the following chart shows, sexual exploitation is the biggest driver of forced labor profits, accounting for some $172.6 billion worldwide in 2024. This breaks down to a significant amount in all regions, at $58.6 billion in Europe and Central Asia, $48.4 billion in Asia and the Pacific, $34.9 billion in the Americas, $16.1 billion in Africa and $14.6 billion in the Arab States.

Despite making up nearly three quarters (73 percent) of the total illegal profits from forced labor, sexual exploitation accounts for only 27 percent of all people in privately imposed forced labor (i.e. not including state-imposed forced labor). Some of the other major areas for illegal forced labor are industry (including mines and quarrying, manufacturing, construction and utilities), the services sector (including but not limited to wholesale and trade, accommodation and food service activities, transport and storage), the agriculture sector (forestry, hunting, cultivation of crops, livestock production and fishing) and domestic work (in third party households).

According to the ILO’s calculations, illegal profits for forced labor have increased by some $64 billion since 2014 worldwide. This is the result of both more people in forced labor (23.7 million in 2024 versus 18.7 million in 2014) as well as more illegal profit being generated per victim.