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The ILO has developed a body of legal instruments, known as international labour standards (ILS), which aim to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. These instruments are drawn up by the ILO constituents – governments, employers and workers – and include conventions and protocols, which are legally binding international treaties that ILO member States are encouraged to ratify; and Recommendations, which serve as non-binding guidelines.

This tool explains the similarities and differences between important forced labour related concepts such as trafficking, slavery or worst forms of child labour.

Many factors will influence the decision to opt for a stand-alone NAP on forced labour or to mainstream forced labour into other policy areas. This tool provides some elements to guide your decision.

Before developing a NAP with robust strategies to eradicate forced labour, it is imperative to understand the current situation in the country through quantitative and qualitative data collection. Statistical data is needed to understand the magnitude of forced labour, the affected populations and sectors. In order to ensure that the collection and analysis of data is comprehensive and accurate, the International Conference of Labour Statisticians adopted Guidelines concerning the measurement of forced labour so that all countries use the same definitions and indicators. Countries are increasingly integrating modules on forced labour (often in combination with a component on child labour) into their Labour Force Surveys or other regular household surveys. This approach is often cheaper and more sustainable than undertaking stand-alone surveys and allows data comparison, which can be useful to assess the impact of the NAP over time.

The following checklist can help assess whether the NAP strategy effectively encompasses the different elements related to Prevention, Protection, Prosecution and Partnerships, that are relevant to the national context. This list is based on the ILO Forced Labour Protocol and Recommendation as well as the ILO review of policies and programmes.

This tool is a slide presentation that demonstrated the links between forced labour and the 17 SDGs.

All the different steps in the NAP formulation process should be implemented in a way to build ownership and ensure effective implementation of the NAP strategy. Inclusiveness, openness, clear guidance and leadership constitute essential ingredients in the process.

Background studies will help assess the situation in the country and allow partners to make decisions on the strategy, scope, timeframe, format and contents of the NAP to be put in place. The more knowledge regarding the situation is collected, the more likely partners are able to easily design a realistic, implementable and effective NAP on forced labour. A background study will also provide useful information in order to define the NAP’s coordination and implementation set-up and its oversight mechanism, to build the cost estimate and to monitor progress and measure impact.

In developing and implementing a NAP on forced labour, it is important to assess the capacity of the partners involved. This will help guide the selection of implementing partners or help identify some capacity-building needs to be addressed for effective implementation. This checklist can be used as a starting point to stimulate thinking and generate discussion; some points may not be relevant in all countries, while some countries may face further capacity issues that are not included.

This note is intended to stimulate thinking about what ownership means and how it can lay the foundations for an effective NAP.1 “Ownership” is generally agreed to be of vital importance to the NAP – without real national ownership, a NAP is unlikely to be implemented to any significant degree and unlikely to bring about meaningful change. If there is real ownership of the NAP, it means that partners acknowledge that the eradication of forced labour is “their business” and will prioritise this in their respective agendas. This applies to government, social partners and other civil society partners. As the government and the Parliament are the ones driving change in many aspects, for example, by adopting and enforcing laws and policies on forced labour, political commitment is also essential. Below, you will find concrete suggestions of what can be done at each stage of the NAP formulation process to create ownership of the NAP and what partners may do to stimulate political commitment. It should be borne in mind that a truly inclusive consultation and formulation process is the most important step towards national ownership of the NAP. Inclusive processes tend to be lengthier, but skipping partners or steps in the consultation process may be costly in terms of ownership and (non) implementation in the long run. Hence, striving to make the NAP formulation process as inclusive as possible should be the aim of lead agencies at all times.