Hello, I've been researching modern slavery at Founders Pledge recently. (Also oops, pressed send before I meant to- hence the edit!)

I really respect the Freedom Fund for pushing forward with evaluative work, esp in an area where there aren't many published evaluations  (you can see one of their evaluations here). At the same time, I think the $657 figure is very optimistic. My understanding is that the figure GWWC are pulling from (the $657 amount) is based on weaker, observational evidence—and doesn't really account for the marginal funding amount. By this, I mean that I expect that most high-quality programs would be funded within the next few years (so this is really the cost to speed this process up).

My general sense is that this is an area where the evidence basis for direct work is suprisingly weak; there are hardly any RCTs, or strong quasi-experiments. It's true that modern slavery interventions are difficult to test, but nonetheless this is pretty striking given that modern slavery is an area that's of increasing interest to many policy makers (e.g. movement towards an EU ban on products made with forced labor, SDG goal 8.7). 

I suspect the lack of RCT-style evidence, and the sense that it's not super neglected, might be why there hasn't been much EA focus here. Nonetheless, I think focusing on interventions around advocacy, tech and research may be promising here (and I'd probably argue for prioritising this over direct work, given current funding patterns). 

Advocacy in this area can push for things like strengthening existing Modern Slavery Acts (e.g. by adding sanctions, existing legislature is very weak) and bringing in 'floor wages' for workers (e.g. see this video from the Asia Floor Wage Alliance). Tech developments to actually be able to locate modern slavery seem critical to me, and like a key bottleneck in this area: to NGOs (who need to be able to prioritise their efforts, measure the impact of their work and so on), to multi-national companies (who need to be able to locate modern slavery within their supply chains, in order to choose contractors who do not use modern slavery), to consumers (to know which products are at risk of modern slavery and apply consumer pressure), and to strengthening legislation (it seems difficult to impose sanctions on multi-national companies, if companies can genuinely argue that they don't have the ability to locate modern slavery in their supply chains). I'm also interested in tech work that helps workers stay safe as they migrate (e.g. apps that provide accurate job info, tell people their work rights, etc etc). So I'd probably lean to charities with a strong focus on this; afraid I don't have a one-stop recommendation yet as work is still in progress, but you might want to check out the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, Global Fund to End modern Slavery, Anti-Slavery International and International Justice Mission as well as the Freedom Fund (for groups that also have an advocacy/ tech focus).

 

The #1 reason this hasn't been discussed in EA is probably that... nobody has thought about it.

EA is a small group that has converged on a small set of causes through a mix of historical accidents and reasoning. If you've thought about anti-trafficking as a cause for 1 hour, you've probably thought more about it than 99% of EAs.

This looks interesting/promising to me but I don't know anything about it.

I am wondering the same and thus reading this now. Was reading some posts recently: https://thailand.iom.int/stories/forced-crime-trafficking-survivors-thailand-tell-their-stories 

This paragraph from it is also interesting "Over the next half-year, Ahmad would be forced to scam people through a fake Twitter profile, posing as an attractive young woman. “My task was to collect people’s WhatsApp numbers, after which I would pass them on to another team to continue the scam.” This may explain both why there so many Twitter fake profile, and also rising number of phone scams.

https://thailand.un.org/en/275298-8-facts-you-need-know-about-human-trafficking-21st-century 

This report dated 30 July 2024: "Human trafficking manifests in many forms. UNODC's latest research shows that 38.7 per cent of victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation, which takes place on the streets, in brothels, massage centres, hotels or bars. The victims – mainly women and girls – often experience extreme violence and abuse. 

A further 38.8 per cent are exploited for forced labour. Some people work long hours in factories, for minimal or no pay, producing clothes, computers or phones. Others work on fields, plantations or fishing boats – often in harsh weather – cultivating corn, rice or wheat, harvesting coffee and cocoa beans or catching fish and seafood. "

It is probably one of the first times I became aware how operationalized this is, and how police are also corrupted and could be working with these organizations. https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-trafficking-in-persons-report/thailand/ 

We are (or at least I am) incredibly privileged and naive for not being aware of how big of an issue this was. A Chinese actor https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd606l1407no was also kidnapped. Based on comments from social media, these practice are becoming more operationalized in recent years.