Human Trafficking: Are Companies Jointly Responsible?
Thierry Marchandise, Nadine Meunier, Sophie Jekeler for the SAMILIA Foundation
When we talk about human trafficking, we naturally think of sexual exploitation, which, with the evolution of our societies, has taken many diverse forms and has grown significantly, particularly with the advent of the internet.
However, there is another form of exploitation, often equally insidious: economic human trafficking.
This is a recent situation that highlights its seriousness.
Information has just emerged that SNCB is working with subcontractors for station cleaning, and that one of these subcontracting companies employs staff who are either staying illegally or classified as false self-employed workers. Several workers are also victims of trafficking; one employee reported having to pay €4,000 to be “brought” to Belgium.
This event raises several ethical questions.
The use of undeclared workers or staff vulnerable due to their refugee or undocumented status distorts fair competition among bidders for contracts with public or semi-public organizations.
It appears that projects are being considered to correct this abnormality by making both the principal contractor and the subcontractor jointly responsible for social and tax debts.
SNCB is clearly aware of these difficulties.
Another ethical question concerns the responsibility of an employer who uses staff who cannot in any way assert their rights or legitimate claims. The employer has little difficulty implying that anyone who disagrees can be replaced within the hour.
Human trafficking therefore encompasses much broader and more complex notions than “just” prostitution.
The common denominator of exploitation can be seen in the indebted young woman to a pimp, the overworked waiter, the construction worker with no insurance coverage, the seamstress bent over her machine eighteen hours a day, the truck driver subjected to inhumane schedules, the farm worker housed in a barn, the domestic worker available 24/7…
Human dignity lies at the heart of the debate—an abstract notion left to the judge’s discretion to differentiate illegal employment of foreign labor from human trafficking.
When working conditions are deemed contrary to human dignity, it is indeed contemporary slavery.
As early as October 2010, by organizing a conference on “human trafficking and economic exploitation”, the Samilia Foundation was already sounding the alarm.
By bringing together auditors and labor inspectors, police, associations, and employer federations, the Samilia Foundation committed to a collaborative approach involving all relevant sectors.
In our view, only a multidisciplinary approach involving the judicial world, companies, unions, and the general public can perhaps overcome this scourge.
Action is urgent. Every year, astronomical sums escape state finances and are reinvested by criminal networks into other illegal activities, laundered, or used to ensure impunity. Indeed, with the economic and financial crisis, some states were forced to drastically reduce public servant salaries, exposing them to corruption.
Paradoxically, the tightening of immigration policies and the strengthening of European Union borders benefit human traffickers, who often charge exorbitantly for the journey to destination countries. Many young people—and adults—from countries with limited employment prospects attempt, sometimes at the risk of their lives, to reach the European Union, seen as a promised land.
In this context, recruiting victims for human trafficking is the least difficult phase, as most incur debts to pay for their travel. Once there, they are forced to work, sometimes for years, to repay that debt.
The economic crisis highlights, on one hand, the necessity of including ethical clauses in public contracts, and on the other, the importance of reinforcing automatic financial liability mechanisms at every level regarding workers’ rights and the collective interest.
- Victims of human trafficking generate $31.6 billion per year, of which $27.8 billion comes from sexual exploitation (EUROPOL, May 2007)
- , managed by the new agency FRONTEX.
- Even within the EU, countries like Romania or Bulgaria see their 16–30-year-old population shrinking every year due to emigration.
- In Romania, Kamata is a violent debt system passed down through generations, leading to forms of exploitation in which children are often the first victims, forced to earn money by any means—including theft and prostitution—to repay their parents’ debt.
