Frequently Asked Questions

Is slavery still a problem?

There are an estimated 49.6 million people in modern slavery, despite a blanket global ban on such practices. To bring this figure close to zero by 2030 – to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals Target 8.7 – we would need to reduce the number of people affected by around 10,000 individuals per day.
Forced labour alone generates an estimated USD 150 billion dollars in illicit funds per year.
The prohibition of slavery is one of the strongest norms in international law. It has been translated into a wide range of international and domestic legal regimes. Yet slavery is all around us, in every region of the globe.
There are good reasons to believe that the risks of vulnerability to modern slavery and human trafficking are actually increasing due to major social, technological and environmental changes. These include climate change, automation, conflict and migration, which disrupt global labour markets, value-chains and livelihoods.
All of these disruptions make people more vulnerable to modern slavery and human trafficking. And financial exclusion amplifies those vulnerabilities. On the other hand, financial inclusion can reduce vulnerability.
Modern slavery represents a tragic market failure that leaves us all worse off. It involves treating people as disposable objects to be exploited rather than full agents participating in our shared economic and social life. As a result, we all miss out on their lost potential. It also creates significant costs for society at large: law enforcement costs, healthcare costs and foregone economic inputs.

What does the financial sector have to do with modern slavery and human trafficking?

Financial institutions may be connected to modern slavery and human trafficking through their own operations, or through their business relationships.
Due to its enormous reach and diversity, if we accelerate engagement by the global financial sector in tackling these crimes, we can make a real, measurable impact to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The sector’s leaders have recognized the global financial sector’s responsibility to respect human rights in their businesses; to help fight modern slavery and human trafficking in the businesses they finance; and to help address vulnerabilities to these phenomena.
Finance is a lever that can move the entire global economy. The financial sector has unparalleled influence over global business and can invest in and foster business practices that help end modern slavery and human trafficking.
Because the financial sector is so intertwined with the rest of the global economy, financial sector action will help change the way the whole global economy works. The financial sector has a unique opportunity to lead the transformation of our economies to exclude modern slavery and human trafficking risks.

What is the history of Finance Against Slavery & Trafficking?

Based on earlier work by United Nations University and the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, the Liechtenstein Initiative for a Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking was launched in September 2018. The aim of the Commission was to consider how to put the financial sector at the heart of global efforts to address modern slavery and human trafficking through a year-long global consultative process.
The creation of the Commission responded directly to calls from the G7, the G20, the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council to partner with the private sector in tackling modern slavery and human trafficking, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The Commission was convened by Nobel Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Governments of Liechtenstein, Australia and the Netherlands and the Chair was Fiona Reynolds, CEO of the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment.
The Commission consisted of 25 Commissioners, representing a broad spectrum of the financial sector and those working to end modern slavery and human trafficking. This included survivors of human trafficking and child slavery, leaders from hedge funds, commercial and retail banks, institutional investors, development financing organizations, global trade unions, regulators, UN bodies, and civil society.
Completing its time-bound mandate, the Commission released the Blueprint for Mobilizing Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking, along with its associated Toolkit, at the UN General Assembly in September 2019.
The Blueprint gave rise to Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking. Today, FAST advises on the implementation of the Blueprint across the financial sector and undertakes research, training, special initiatives and campaigns to promote uptake of its recommendations. Its work is complemented by Delta 8.7, the Alliance 8.7 Knowledge Platform, which is also housed at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research.

What is Finance Against Slavery & Trafficking?

Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) is a multi-stakeholder initiative based at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research that works to mobilize the financial sector against modern slavery and human trafficking.
Through its alliance-building approach, FAST works in partnership with entities around the world, including international banks and regional banking associations, investor groups and stock exchanges, professional associations, survivor support organizations, regulators and policymakers to address modern slavery and human trafficking.

How did the Blueprint come about?

The Financial Sector Commission held four global consultations between September 2018 and September 2019 to discuss the sector’s approach to anti-slavery and anti-trafficking compliance; responsible lending and investment; and financial sector innovation. Experts from around the world present their research and initiatives at these meetings. The Liechtenstein Initiative produced and commissioned briefing papers for each meeting to frame discussions.
Between the consultations, the Liechtenstein Initiative operated Commission-led work streams, which fed into the Blueprint. These work streams coalesce around crosscutting issues that need to be accelerated by the global financial sector to effectively address and prevent modern slavery and human trafficking.
In September 2019, the Commission released its Blueprint during the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This blueprint offers concrete tools that the sector can use and initiatives they can participate in to address modern slavery and human trafficking.

As part of the Blueprint to mobilize the financial sector against modern slavery and human trafficking, Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) has identified five goals towards which financial sector actors can work through individual and collective action. These include:

Goal 1: Compliance with laws against modern slavery and human trafficking.
Goal 2: Knowing and showing modern slavery and human trafficking risks.
Goal 3: Using leverage creatively to mitigate and address modern slavery and human trafficking risks.
Goal 4: Providing and enabling effective remedy for modern slavery and human trafficking harms.
Goal 5: Investment in innovation for prevention.

Each Goal is accompanied by three ‘Act Now’ measures for immediate action, and three ‘Initiate’ actions to be implemented over a longer course of time.

What is the Implementation Toolkit?

The Implementation Toolkit assists with the implementation of the Blueprint and includes:

Risk Mapping Starter Workflow – A simple introductory workflow for financial sector actors beginning to think about how to identify modern slavery and human trafficking risks in their own operations or business relationships. Specialist expert guidance is encouraged. This is presented together with the Connection Diagnostic Tool on this website.
Connection Diagnostic Tool – An interactive self-diagnostic tool and illustrative examples that help financial sector actors begin to understand identified connections to modern slavery and human trafficking, and expectations of how they should respond. This is presented together with the Risk Mapping Starter Workflow on this website.
Financial Investigations Tool – Guidance on good practice in conducting financial investigations into modern slavery and human trafficking, produced with OSCE working with the Commission.
Leverage Practice Matrix – Building on a typology developed by Shift, this matrix offers illustrations from recent financial sector practice of six different types of leverage, helping financial sector actors understand what creative use of leverage may look like.
Survivor Inclusion Initiative – An initiative to help survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking find safe and reliable access to basic financial products and services. It was rolled out in Canada, UK and US in September 2019, with further expansion anticipated.
Vulnerable Populations Initiative – Preventing modern slavery and human trafficking by growing access to financial products and services for highly vulnerable populations. Rolling out late 2019 and 2020.

What is the Survivor Inclusion Initiative?

Survivors often find that traffickers have hijacked their financial identity or banking products for money laundering or other criminal purposes, spoiling their creditworthiness and complicating financial reintegration and putting them at risk of re-victimization.
The Survivor Inclusion Initiative is a collaboration of financial institutions, survivor service provider organizations and other relevant entities and aims to promote financial access and services for survivors.
The Initiative provides a framework for financial institutions, survivor service and support organizations and relevant governmental actors to collaborate to provide survivors easier access to basic financial services. These include basic financial services (e.g. debit and credit cards, checking and savings accounts), financial education services, the restoration of creditworthiness, processes to provide required documentation for access to financial services.
If you represent a financial institution that is looking to join the Initiative, please reach out to the Secretariat.

What is the Vulnerable Populations Initiative?

The Vulnerable Populations Initiative is a a collaboration of financial institutions, survivor service provider organizations and other relevant entities and aims to promote financial access and services for populations vulnerable to modern slavery.

It provides a framework for the provision of microfinance and digital finance products and services tailored to strengthen financial access for populations that have heightened vulnerability to modern slavery and human trafficking. It includes (but it not limited to) displaced populations and aims to:

Identify interested financial institutions that would provide microfinance products and services to individuals and populations otherwise vulnerable to these crimes;
Partner with relevant organizations, including local and regional networks, in developing countries to develop viable product and service offerings; and
Identify field partners and/or organizations to administer the disbursement of the products.

How does this relate to the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

Modern slavery and human trafficking’s intersection with the financial sector touches on a number of the Targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
These include: Target 5.2 on violence against all women, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation; Target 8.7 on taking effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and child labour; Target 8.10 on strengthening the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and to expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all; Target 10.7 on facilitating orderly, safe, and responsible migration and mobility of people; Target 16.2 to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children; as well as SDG 17 on collaborating and financing the 2030 agenda.
Women make up 59 per cent of the unbanked, and women and girls make up 71 per cent of the estimated global modern slavery population (including 63 per cent of those in forced labour).
Vulnerability to slavery is closely related to labour market regulation and dynamics. Unemployment, partial employment and informal employment all increase the risk of slavery.
Migration is in turn a source of vulnerability to slavery and human trafficking, especially where it occurs outside safe, regular and orderly channels. Migrant workers, and especially forcibly displaced people, have limited options to safely store money, build up savings or send and receive money, and simply carry out everyday life transactions.
Conflict is the greatest source of vulnerability to modern slavery and human trafficking. We are witnessing a resurgence of enslavement in armed conflict contexts, not only as a method of recruitment, but increasingly also as an open tactic of ideological subjugation – and conflict financing.
Heightened exposure to natural disaster as a result of environmental change is also rapidly emerging as a source of growing modern slavery and human trafficking risk.