Measuring Vulnerability and Estimating Prevalence of Modern Slavery
Addressing modern slavery is a significant challenge for governments and non-government organizations (NGOs), whose efforts are hampered by a range of factors, not least a lack of understanding what increases the risk of enslavement and the extent of the crime at a national level. Slavery is a hidden and diverse crime, and understanding vulnerability to slavery remains a work in progress, although we have learned a great deal about the factors that help modern slavery flourish from practitioners and qualitative researchers.
Empirical evidence suggests a connection between slavery and problems such as corruption, conflict, poverty, discrimination, and the impact of a weak rule of law, poor or declining economic conditions, and adverse environmental change. While this is an important starting point, without measurement, we cannot know where to focus interventions.
To provide a reliable evidence base upon which governments, civil society groups, and businesses can build more-effective responses, the Global Slavery Index (GSI) has applied a statistical approach to identifying the factors that are correlated with increased risk of enslavement. Central to the Index are an assessment of factors that explain or predict the prevalence of modern slavery, and an estimation of the prevalence of modern slavery in 167 countries. This article discusses the development of the vulnerability model and the methods applied in the estimation of modern slavery for the GSI.
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