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	50 Million People Worldwide in Modern Slavery by ILO, IOM, Walk Free Foundation   Sep. 2022   Fifty million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, according to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery Report. Of these people, 28 million were in forced labour and 22 million were trapped in forced marriage.   Latest estimates show that forced labour and forced marriage have increased significantly in the last five years, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).   The number of people in modern slavery has risen significantly in the last five years. Ten million more people were in modern slavery in 2021 compared to 2016 global estimates. Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable.   Modern slavery occurs in almost every country in the world, and cuts across ethnic, cultural and religious lines. More than half (52 per cent) of all forced labour and a quarter of all forced marriages can be found in upper-middle income or high-income countries.   Forced labour   Most cases of forced labour (86 per cent) are found in the private sector. Forced labour in sectors other than commercial sexual exploitation accounts for 63 per cent of all forced labour, while forced commercial sexual exploitation represents 23 per cent of all forced labour. Almost four out of five of those in forced commercial sexual exploitation are women or girls.   State-imposed forced labour accounts for 14 per cent of people in forced labour.   Almost one in eight of all those in forced labour are children (3.3 million). More than half of these are in commercial sexual exploitation.   Forced marriage   An estimated 22 million people were living in forced marriage on any given day in 2021. This indicates an increase of 6.6 million since the 2016 global estimates.   The true incidence of forced marriage, particularly involving children aged 16 and younger, is likely far greater than current estimates can capture; these are based on a narrow definition and do not include all child marriages. Child marriages are considered to be forced because a child cannot legally give consent to marry.   Forced marriage is closely linked to long-established patriarchal attitudes and practices and is highly context-specific. The overwhelming majority of forced marriages (more than 85 per cent) was driven by family pressure. Although two-thirds (65 per cent) of forced marriages are found in Asia and the Pacific, when regional population size is considered, the prevalence is highest in the Arab States, with 4.8 people out of every 1,000 in the region in forced marriage.   Migrants particularly vulnerable to forced labour   Migrant workers are more than three times more likely to be in forced labour than non-migrant adult workers. While labour migration has a largely positive effect on individuals, households, communities and societies, this finding demonstrates how migrants are particularly vulnerable to forced labour and trafficking, whether because of irregular or poorly governed migration, or unfair and unethical recruitment practices.   "It is shocking that the situation of modern slavery is not improving. Nothing can justify the persistence of this fundamental abuse of human rights," said ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder.   "We know what needs to be done, and we know it can be done. Effective national policies and regulation are fundamental. But governments cannot do this alone. International standards provide a sound basis, and an all-hands-on-deck approach is needed. Trade unions, employers' organizations, civil society and ordinary people all have critical roles to play."   Antonio Vitorino, IOM Director General, said: "This report underscores the urgency of ensuring that all migration is safe, orderly, and regular. Reducing the vulnerability of migrants to forced labour and trafficking in persons depends first and foremost on national policy and legal frameworks that respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants -- and potential migrants -- at all stages of the migration process, regardless of their migration status. The whole of society must work together to reverse these shocking trends, including through implementation of the Global Compact for Migration."   Grace Forrest, Founding Director of Walk Free, said: "Modern slavery is the antithesis of sustainable development. Yet, in 2022, it continues to underpin our global economy. It is a man-made problem, connected to both historical slavery and persisting structural inequality. In a time of compounding crises, genuine political will is the key to ending these human rights abuses."   Ending modern slavery   The report proposes a number of recommended actions which, taken together and swiftly, would mark significant progress towards ending modern slavery. They include: improving and enforcing laws and labour inspections; ending state-imposed forced labour; stronger measures to combat forced labour and trafficking in business and supply chains; extending social protection, and strengthening legal protections, including raising the legal age of marriage to 18 without exception.   Other measures include addressing the increased risk of trafficking and forced labour for migrant workers, promoting fair and ethical recruitment, and greater support for women, girls and vulnerable individuals.   # Modern slavery, as defined for the report, is comprised of two principal components - forced labour and forced marriage. Both refer to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power. Forced labour, as defined in the ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No.29), refers to "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily". The "private economy" includes all forms of forced labour other than state-imposed forced labour.   http://www.iom.int/news/50-million-people-worldwide-modern-slavery http://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/09/special-rapporteur-right-development-covid-19-pandemic-triggered-largest-global Visit the related web page
	10-point plan to address the information crisis by Dmitry Muratov, Maria Ressa Rappler.com   Sep. 2022   'When facts become optional and trust disappears, we will no longer be able to hold power to account,' say Nobel Peace Prize laureates Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov   (Presented by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov at the Freedom of Expression Conference, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway, on September 2, 2022).   We call for a world in which technology is built in service of humanity and where our global public square protects human rights above profits.   Right now, the huge potential of technology to advance our societies has been undermined by the business model and design of the dominant online platforms. But we remind all those in power that true human progress comes from harnessing technology to advance rights and freedoms for all, not sacrificing them for the wealth and power of a few.   We urge rights-respecting democracies to wake up to the existential threat of information ecosystems being distorted by a Big Tech business model fixated on harvesting people’s data and attention, even as it undermines serious journalism and polarizes debate in society and political life.   When facts become optional and trust disappears, we will no longer be able to hold power to account. We need a public sphere where fostering trust with a healthy exchange of ideas is valued more highly than corporate profits and where rigorous journalism can cut through the noise.   Many governments around the world have exploited these platforms’ greed to grab and consolidate power. That is why they also attack and muzzle the free press. Clearly, these governments cannot be trusted to address this crisis. But nor should we put our rights in the hands of technology companies’ intent on sustaining a broken business model that actively promotes disinformation, hate speech and abuse.   The resulting toxic information ecosystem is not inevitable. Those in power must do their part to build a world that puts human rights, dignity, and security first, including by safeguarding scientific and journalistic methods and tested knowledge. To build that world, we must:   Bring an end to the surveillance-for-profit business model   The invisible ‘editors’ of today’s information ecosystem are the opaque algorithms and recommender systems built by tech companies that track and target us. They amplify misogyny, racism, hate, junk science and disinformation – weaponizing every societal fault line with relentless surveillance to maximize “engagement”.   This surveillance-for-profit business model is built on the con of our supposed consent. But forcing us to choose between allowing platforms and data brokers to feast on our personal data or being shut out from the benefits of the modern world is simply no choice at all.   The vast machinery of corporate surveillance not only abuses our right to privacy, but allows our data to be used against us, undermining our freedoms and enabling discrimination.   This unethical business model must be reined in globally, including by bringing an end to surveillance advertising that people never asked for and of which they are often unaware.   Europe has made a start, with the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts. Now these must be enforced in ways that compel platforms to de-risk their design, detox their algorithms and give users real control. Privacy and data rights, to date largely notional, must also be properly enforced. And advertisers must use their money and influence to protect their customers against a tech industry that is actively harming people.   End tech discrimination and treat people everywhere equally   Global tech companies afford people unequal rights and protection depending on their status, power, nationality, and language. We have seen the painful and destructive consequences of tech companies’ failure to prioritize the safety of all people everywhere equally. Companies must be legally required to rigorously assess human rights risks in every country they seek to expand in, ensuring proportionate language and cultural competency.   They must also be forced to bring their closed-door decisions on content moderation and algorithm changes into the light and end all special exemptions for those with the most power and reach. These safety, design, and product choices that affect billions of people cannot be left to corporations to decide.   Transparency and accountability rules are an essential first step to reclaiming the internet for the public good.   Rebuild independent journalism as the antidote to tyranny   Big tech platforms have unleashed forces that are devastating independent media by swallowing up online advertising while simultaneously enabling a tech-fueled tsunami of lies and hate that drown out facts. For facts to stand a chance, we must end the amplification of disinformation by tech platforms. But this alone is not enough. Just 13% of the world’s population can currently access a free press.   If we are to hold power to account and protect journalists, we need unparalleled investment in a truly independent media persevering in situ or working in exile that ensures its sustainability while incentivizing compliance with ethical norms in journalism.   21st century newsrooms must also forge a new, distinct path, recognizing that to advance justice and rights, they must represent the diversity of the communities they serve. Governments must ensure the safety and independence of journalists who are increasingly being attacked, imprisoned, or killed on the frontlines of this war on facts.   We, as Nobel Laureates, from across the world, send a united message: together we can end this corporate and technological assault on our lives and liberties, but we must act now.   It is time to implement the solutions we already have to rebuild journalism and reclaim the technological architecture of global conversation for all humanity.   We call on all rights-respecting democratic governments to:   1. Require tech companies to carry out independent human rights impact assessments that must be made public as well as demand transparency on all aspects of their business – from content moderation to algorithm impacts to data processing to integrity policies.   2. Protect citizens’ right to privacy with robust data protection laws.   3. Publicly condemn abuses against the free press and journalists globally and commit funding and assistance to independent media and journalists under attack.   We call on the EU to:   4. Be ambitious in enforcing the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts so these laws amount to more than just ‘new paperwork’ for the companies and instead force them to make changes to their business model, such as ending algorithmic amplification that threatens fundamental rights and spreads disinformation and hate, including in cases where the risks originate outside EU borders.   5. Urgently propose legislation to ban surveillance advertising, recognizing this practice is fundamentally incompatible with human rights.   6. Properly enforce the EU General Data Protection Regulation so that people’s data rights are finally made reality.   7. Include strong safeguards for journalists’ safety, media sustainability and democratic guarantees in the digital space in the forthcoming European Media Freedom Act.   8. Protect media freedom by cutting off disinformation upstream. This means there should be no special exemptions or carve-outs for any organisation or individual in any new technology or media legislation. With globalized information flows, this would give a blank check to those governments and non-state actors who produce industrial scale disinformation to harm democracies and polarize societies everywhere.   9. Challenge the extraordinary lobbying machinery, the astroturfing campaigns and recruitment revolving door between big tech companies and European government institutions.   We call on the UN to:   10. Create a special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General focused on the Safety of Journalists (SESJ) who would challenge the current status quo and finally raise the cost of crimes against journalists.   Signed by: Dmitry Muratov, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Maria Ressa, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate   http://www.rappler.com/technology/social-media/full-text-maria-ressa-dmitry-muratov-10-point-plan-address-information-crisis/ http://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/articles/kofi-annan-foundation-endorses-nobel-peace-prize-laureates-call-to-address-information-crisis/ http://www.unesco.org/en/communication-information/safety-journalists/universal-periodical-review http://cpj.org/reports/2023/01/deadly-year-for-journalists-as-killings-rose-sharply-in-2022/ http://cpj.org/reports/2022/11/killing-with-impunity-vast-majority-of-journalists-murderers-go-free/ http://rsf.org/en http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/11/un-human-rights-chief-turk-issues-open-letter-twitters-elon-musk http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/01/freedom-speech-not-freedom-spread-racial-hatred-social-media-un-experts http://news.un.org/en/story/2023/01/1132597   20 Sep. 2022   Civil Society groups and environmental agencies call on Facebook, TikTok, Google & YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media platforms to act on Climate Disinformation spread across their networks.   The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has named climate disinformation as a threat to the world’s ability to effectively address climate change. The UN Secretary General António Guterres recently highlighted the threat of misinformation, proliferated by social media companies, in a recent UN General Assembly speech.   Social media companies bear responsibility for their role in amplifying and perpetuating climate disinformation. Platforms owe it to their users and the planet to stop amplifying the climate disinformation that undermines our ability to combat the climate crisis.   (Union of Concerned Scientists, 350.org, FOE, Greenpeace, agencies)   UN Secretary-General's Address to the United Nations General Assembly (Extract):   "The fossil fuel industry is feasting on hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and windfall profits while household budgets shrink and our planet burns.   Let’s tell it like it is. Our world is addicted to fossil fuels. It’s time for an intervention. We need to hold fossil fuel companies and their enablers to account. That includes the banks, private equity, asset managers and other financial institutions that continue to invest and underwrite carbon pollution.   And it includes the massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny. Just as they did for the tobacco industry decades before, lobbyists and spin doctors have spewed harmful misinformation. Fossil fuel interests need to spend less time averting a PR disaster – and more time averting a planetary one".   Apr. 2022   The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirm that “climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people,” urging that if we phase out fossil fuels quickly, we can stabilize the climate. The report released in February on adaptation notes “rhetoric and misinformation on climate change and the deliberate undermining of science have contributed to misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”   http://techpolicy.press/latest-ipcc-reports-underscore-threat-of-climate-disinformation/ http://www.ucsusa.org/climate/disinformation Visit the related web page
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