Anti-slavery pledge praised, but more efforts are still needed

The decision to include a pledge to eradicate slavery at the heart of a UN global development agenda is a major victory, but there is a long way to go, campaigners against trafficking and slavery said on Monday.

Although slavery is illegal in every country, almost 36 million people are enslaved worldwide, the Walk Free Foundation estimates. They include girls trafficked to brothels, people forced into manual labor and victims of debt bondage.

The 193 United Nations member states approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals on Sunday, a document that will shape development and poverty eradication efforts for the next 15 years, replacing eight Millennium Development Goals.

"You can't end poverty without ending slavery - it's fundamental," said child slave turned anti-slavery campaigner James Kofi Annan. "Human trafficking and human slavery is a catastrophe. It's something that is eating into the productivity of the human race and has a negative impact on economies around the world."

Aidan McQuade, director of the campaign group Anti-Slavery International, said he was delighted to see that ending slavery was finally part of the development agenda - "a place it should have been a long time ago".

"Currently you have people whose labor is not being used for either the benefit of themselves or their families," he said. "If they start working for themselves and their families instead of enriching some slaveholder there will be a disproportionate impact upon poverty compared with other interventions that could be made."

The SDG target calls for immediate measures "to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor".

The explicit mention of modern slavery and human trafficking in the text was confirmed only late in the day after long negotiations.

Campaigners say countries of major concern include India, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand and Mauritania.

McQuade said there should be greater discussion on how trade, aid, migration and diplomacy can affect slavery.

"Countries promulgating laws which allow individuals to enslave others should be held to account in international criminal courts, and diplomatically as well," he said.