Sex trade to slavery: a UN agency says criminals reap $236B a year in profits from forced labor

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. labor agency says illegal profits from forced labor globally have risen to the “obscene” amount of $236 billion per year. The International Labor Organization says sexual exploitation is to blame for about three-fourths of the total take from a business that deprives migrants of money they can send home, swipes jobs from legal workers and lets criminals behind it dodge taxes. The tally for 2021, the most recent year covered in the painstaking global study, marked an increase of 37%, or $64 billion, compared with a decade earlier.