Modern slavery and human trafficking affect an estimated 50 million people worldwide. This includes 27.6 million in situations of forced labour who are directly embedded in global supply chains and labour markets. These abuses generate $236 billion in illegal profits annually, starkly outstripping the limited sums now invested in prevention and remediation ($124 million). The imbalance between the profitability of exploitation and the scarcity of investment to prevent it represents a structural mispricing of risk that is spilling over into financial markets, corporate valuations, and the broader investment landscape.

This report draws on the most robust and recent costed framework available. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), eliminating privately imposed forced labour would require $212 billion over the next decade, equivalent to only 0.14 percent of one year’s global gross domestic product (GDP). Yet annual spending across official development assistance (ODA), national budgets and philanthropy totals only some $0.85–0.9 billion. This leaves a recurring annual investment gap of roughly $36 billion between 2025 and 2030, a gap that continues to undermine regulatory enforcement, weaken supply-chain governance, and heighten corporate exposure to legal, operational and reputational risks.