Associated Press
Illegal profits from forced labor worldwide have risen to the “obscene” amount of $236 billion per year, the U.N. labor agency reported Tuesday, with sexual exploitation to blame for three-fourths of the take from a business that deprives migrants of money they can send home, swipes jobs from legal workers, and allows the criminals behind it to dodge taxes. The International Labor Organization said the tally for 2021, the most recent year covered in the painstaking international study, marked an increase of 37%, or $64 billion, compared with its last estimate published a decade ago. Forced labor can encourage corruption, strengthen criminal networks and incentivize further exploitation, ILO said.