Our Approach

To end modern slavery by making it economically unprofitable, we must address the economic systems perpetuating modern slavery around the globe.

Our Focus

GFEMS views modern slavery as a crime of economic opportunity and a violation of human dignity. To end slavery for good, we must make it unprofitable.

To accomplish this, GFEMS designs, builds and deploys programs in the geographies and sectors where prevalence of modern slavery is known to be the highest. We work with governments, civil society, and the private sector to ensure our interventions address the root of the issue, and are scalable and sustainable.

Our Approach

GFEMS views modern slavery through an economic lens. To make modern slavery economically unprofitable, we design and deploy interventions that address the supply, demand, and the enabling environment in high prevalence sectors and geographies:

The supply side of slavery includes vulnerable populations around the world searching for work or a way out of desperate circumstances. They are forced, deceived, or coerced into exploitative working conditions, often because they do not know of any viable alternatives. Reducing the supply of vulnerable individuals makes exploitation more costly for traffickers. Supply side interventions might include:

• Providing trauma-informed care for survivors

• Promoting awareness of rights, trafficker tactics, and the available alternatives

• Building individual capacities and ability to find viable employment through market-driven skilling and employment programs

The demand side of slavery is driven by the desire for cheap labor, cheap goods, and sexual exploitation. To create sustainable change in the private sector, unethical and exploitative business practices must be shown to be uncompetitive, concrete solutions must be identified, and ethical business models need to be implemented. Demand-side interventions include:

• Developing new tools to detect and mitigate forced labor risks in deep and opaque supply chains

• Building and incentivizing uptake of ethical contracting and ethical production models

• Testing demand reduction approaches for sex trafficking

The enabling environment for slavery is represented by inadequate justice systems and corruption that allow perpetrators to act with impunity, and corporate and cultural norms that ignore harm done to the most vulnerable. The Fund’s interventions to address this environment include:

• Building the capacity of criminal justice and regulatory systems to identify, protect and secure remedies for victims; and to punish traffickers 

• Investing in new technologies and tools to detect and disrupt trafficker operations

• Securing corporate and community buy-in by illuminating the ultimate costs of modern slavery to economies and societies and the gains from eliminating it

Evidence for Action

GFEMS is data driven and committed to building the evidence base on modern slavery and making investment decisions that are evidence informed.

Data is central to the Fund’s work. It helps us understand the scale and scope of modern slavery and what works to eliminate it. Using a portfolio approach, GFEMS invests in a collection of complementary research and evaluation methods to comprehensively understand modern slavery in select sectors and geographies.

Prevalence Estimation

As a hidden crime, evidence on modern slavery has been challenging to obtain, especially prevalence estimates necessary to identify the scale and scope of the problem. Such data can help interventions target the most vulnerable populations and make the case for private sector action against specific supply chain risks. Targeted prevalence estimates also help us understand trends over time in the areas where GFEMS is operating. Drawing insights from public health and other disciplines, GFEMS is undertaking prevalence estimation studies in each geography and sector of investment.

Learning

Evidence generated through short-term innovation testing and longer-term intervention effectiveness studies feed back into the refinement of the Fund’s Theories of Change, improving the targeting of investments with each funding round. For grantees, learning activities facilitate real-time testing for program adaptation and course-correction.

Impact

GFEMS is investing in rigorous evaluation designs allowing for a robust assessment of intervention effectiveness and understanding of investment impact. The Fund’s evaluation objectives are to (a) examine project level contribution towards prevalence reduction across target sectors and (b) assess the overall effect of interventions and innovations in reducing key beneficiary vulnerabilities in target geographies and sectors.

Knowledge Sharing

GFEMS is committed to transparency, collaboration, and building the evidence base in the field. We routinely share our methods and research findings to support the work of policymakers, civil society, and the private sector to better equip and mobilize them on effective solutions to end modern slavery.