Analysing Slavery through Satellite Technology: How Remote Sensing Could Revolutionise Data Collection to Help End Modern Slavery
Bethany Jackson, Kevin Bales, Sarah Owen, Jessica Wardlaw and Doreen S. Boyd
This article forms part of a special issue guest edited by Katarina Schwarz, Hannah Jeffrey and Rebecca Nelson and is the first set of publications which were produced by the recently launched Antislavery Early Research Association (Antislavery ERA), which is supported by the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham.
The opportunity for publication within this special issue arose from a conference held in October 2017 at the University of Liverpool as part of a project entitled the 'Antislavery Usable Past'. The conference in Liverpool was targeted at doctoral students and early career researchers and focused on the wide ranging methodologies which were being used to investigate modern slavery. From this the idea for this paper was born and with collaboration with other co-authors we have investigated the ways in which remote sensing and earth observation technologies (particularly those which are space-borne) can be used to help investigate industries in which practices of modern slavery may be occurring. It is estimated that a third of modern slavery worldwide is visible from space (Bacchi 2018 - the original presentation at the Trust Conference by Doreen Boyd is available here from 00:53:00).
The abstract to the paper can be found below:
An estimated 40.3 million people are enslaved globally across a range of industries. Whilst these industries are known, their scale can hinder the fight against slavery. Some industries using slave labour are visible in satellite imagery, including mining, brick kilns, fishing and shrimp farming. Satellite data can provide supplementary details for large scales which cannot be easily gathered on the ground. This paper reviews previous uses of remote sensing in the humanitarian and human rights sectors and demonstrates how Earth Observation as a methodology can be applied to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target 8.7.
The paper is open access and is available from the Journal of Modern Slavery here (and also as a pdf here), alongside the other articles available within the special issue which cover topics including definitions and legal justice, and new antislavery strategies and cultures.
Resources
Bacchi, U. (2018). Embrace AI, technology to beat human traffickers, activists told. Reuters. Available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-slavery-conference-tech/embrace-ai-technology-to-beat-human-traffickers-activists-told-idUSKCN1NK2E5 [Accessed 02.01.2019].
Boyd, D.S. (2018). Trust Conference Presentation Day 1 Afternoon. Thomson Reuters Trust. Available at https://www.facebook.com/Thomson.Reuters.Foundation/videos/742479176137616/ [Accessed 02.01.2019].
Jackson, B., Bales, K., Owen, S., Wardlaw, J. and Boyd, D.S. (2018). Analysing Slavery through Satellite Technology: How Remote Sensing Could Revolutionise Data Collection to Help Modern Slavery. Journal of Modern Slavery, 4 (2), 169-199.
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