Free the Slaves’ Latin America Regional Office has released Conversaciones sobre Esclavitud Moderna (Conversations on Modern Slavery), a Spanish-language collection built from 10 conversations recorded between May 2025 and May 2026. Hosted by Regional Manager Cinthia Belbussi and Movement Building Coordinator Jaime Moro Saavedra, the series brings together voices from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Labour Organization (ILO), an official from Brazil’s Ministry of Labor, the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI), survivor-led organizations, private sector representatives, and researchers working across the region. Much of this expertise has existed only in English until now; this collection puts it directly into the hands of the Spanish-speaking practitioners, policymakers, and community leaders positioned to act on it.
At a Glance
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- 10 conversations with contributors spanning UNODC, the ILO, an official from Brazil’s Ministry of Labor, FIMI, survivor-led organizations, and the private sector
- A precision map: the collection identifies where exploitation risk concentrates and where to direct resources for the greatest impact
- A market access tool: designed for the moment when U.S. and EU trade regulations are making supply chain due diligence a competitive advantage
- Published in Spanish, closing a language gap so the people making decisions on the ground can access the research they need
A Precision Map: Knowing Where to Focus
The collection’s central contribution is practical: it identifies the structural factors that concentrate exploitation risk — poverty, social inequality, and migration status — and shows, through concrete analysis and testimony, exactly where those factors converge. That specificity is what makes the collection useful. Rather than describing the problem in general terms, it offers donors, governments, companies, and civil society a map for targeting resources where the potential impact is greatest.
That map is built from diverse expertise. Cecilia Ramírez contributes data on the labor migration of Indigenous women and the structural conditions they navigate in the job market. Rocío Urón Durán analyzes reverse (North–South) migration patterns and the recruitment risks they create. Josefa Condori Quipes brings firsthand testimony that grounds the data in lived experience. Methodologies such as the Model for Identifying Child Labor Risk (MIRTI), already operational in the region, show how this kind of territorial precision translates into smarter resource allocation on the ground.
A Window of Opportunity: Trade as a Driver of Change
The timing of this collection is strategic. The products made in Latin America are sold, to a large extent, in U.S. and European markets and both are raising the bar on supply chain traceability. In the United States, enforcement of Section 307 of the Tariff Act (prohibiting imports of goods made with Forced Labor) has intensified, and Section 301 investigations signal growing attention across the region. The European Union’s Forced Labor Product Ban Regulation takes effect in December 2027.
For Latin American exporters, this convergence between trade policy and Human Rights is an opportunity: companies that invest now in supply chain due diligence gain a competitive edge in their main export markets. For governments and international cooperation, it provides an additional incentive to strengthen risk identification and remediation systems. Conversaciones sobre Esclavitud Moderna equips all of these actors with the evidence base they need to act before the deadlines arrive.
Building on Regional Momentum
The collection documents institutional achievements that are already shaping the region’s response: Brazil’s model, with three decades of institutional continuity that has outlasted political cycles; the progressive adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights across the region, with Chile’s due diligence bill as a legislative reference; and Alliance 8.7’s capacity to convene governments, trade unions, the private sector, and civil society under a shared agenda.
Free the Slaves contributes to this architecture through a community-based approach developed and validated over more than a decade in high-prevalence countries, strengthening communities’ capacity to identify risk, organize, and sustain change over time. Equally valuable is the operational expertise accumulated by survivor organizations, Indigenous networks, and Human Rights defenders, a frontline early warning system that complements institutional and corporate response.
Looking Ahead: Four Commitments Toward 2030
The findings in this collection shape Free the Slaves’ forward agenda around four commitments:
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- Strengthen public institutions through technical assistance and methodology transfer, expanding their capacity toward the full spectrum of exploitation this collection documents.
- Support the private sector with risk assessments, value chain diagnostics, and remediation plans that prepare companies for the regulatory demands of their main export markets, as a standard they sustain beyond any single country’s legal requirements.
- Advance survivor and grassroots leadership, ensuring that the people with frontline expertise have the resources and the institutional space to shape solutions.
- Build multi-stakeholder networks that focus efforts and generate the synergies needed to prevent and stop exploitation.
Across all 10 conversations, one lesson is consistent: the responses that work in the region emerge from collaboration between states and civil society, between companies and communities, between survivors and the officials willing to listen. Free the Slaves has spent more than two decades building those alliances in the places where Modern Slavery is hardest to detect. Conversaciones sobre Esclavitud Moderna shows what that joint work can achieve and offers a starting point for anyone ready to join it.
