Building on the power of worker-led organizations
to tackle debt bondage

Low-waged migrant workers underpin much of the global economy and are among the most vulnerable to serious exploitation, including debt bondage and forced labor. Despite this global prevalence, there are currently no existing accurate, transparent calculations of the recruitment costs paid by migrant workers. There are an estimated 169 million labor migrants globally, with over 24 million working in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and over 2 million working in Malaysia. Workers in the Bangladesh-Malaysia and India-GCC corridors are a focus of the FFACT project because these worker populations are especially vulnerable to debt stemming from high recruitment fees and related costs.

There has been a dramatic increase in demand for labor recruitment cost information, driven by a variety of new and emerging human rights due diligence (HRDD) legislation across the United States, Europe, Australia, and the United Kingdom. This data is key for addressing exploitation of migrant workers in all types of supply chains because an important indicator of forced labor is debt bondage. Companies, governments, as well as workers’ and civil society organizations are seeking greater access to recruitment cost data to drive their actions to address debt bondage.   Debt bondage occurs when workers borrow to pay for their own recruitment to a job, and face indebtedness during employment. Verité’s extensive experience tracing labor supply chains shows that the majority of migrant workers pay for recruitment costs, and as a result, face vulnerability to exploitation due to indebtedness during employment. Despite the prevalence, there are currently extremely limited data collection tools or mechanisms available to calculate the real recruitment costs paid by migrant workers.