Satellite technology has been used to tackle a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the strawberry fields of southern Greece. Working with the Greek authorities a consortium of modern slavery experts, led by the University of Nottingham, have used high resolution imagery to identify migrant settlements. They then developed a decision model for which they could prioritise victims that were at highest risk.

By combining earth observation data with operations management techniques, this method  is a world first in detecting labour exploitation. Leading the study, the University of Nottingham Rights Lab combined different data sources and methods to build a set of criteria measuring the extent of labour exploitation in a settlement. The academics then validated these criteria with a government agency and a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) involved in fighting labour exploitation.

“Refugees and migrants often live-in illegality and experience serious financial distress, which puts them at high risk of becoming victims of labour exploitation,” said Dr Ioannis Kougkoulos who led the study for the Rights Lab. “Governments are responsible for ensuring equal treatment for migrant and national workers on their territory, and to protect migrants from being employed under substandard working conditions.”

The strawberry fields of Nea Manolada have been in the human rights spotlight since May 2013, when three local field guards shot and injured 30 Bangladeshi migrant workers. In March 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the workers had been subjected to forced labour and that Greece had violated Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights by not preventing human trafficking of irregular migrant workers. Following a high-stake ruling by the Court, the Greek government was mandated to ramp-up its fight against labour exploitation.

The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), being published in the journal of Production and Operations Management.