In order to work towards ending all forms of modern slavery, it’s essential to accurately measure levels of child exploitation, forced labour, debt bondage, commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, and to understand the ways in which these exploitative practices negatively impact people’s lives. To highlight some of the excellent research that is being carried out into different forms of modern slavery, and to discuss challenges of measuring exploitation, the Freedom Fund hosted a technical convening titled ‘Methodologies for measuring the prevalence of modern slavery’, which took place in London in June.
The Technical Convening brought together 37 leading modern slavery researchers and funders from around the world to discuss prevalence methodologies. This report is a summary of the collective insights and recommendations from this diverse group, drawing on their experiences conducting modern slavery research in over 60 countries and from disciplines ranging from public health, criminal law to machine learning. We believe these recommendations reflect some of the best practices for research into the exploitation of vulnerable populations and can direct those of us working on modern slavery towards greater collaboration and relevancy of research.
