Methodological Assessment of Research on Indicators of Forced Labor in the Supply Chain of Sugar in the

Verité carried out research on the presence of indicators of forced labor in the Dominican sugar sector, a large portion of which are Haitian migrants. The research was not intended to determine the existence of the scale of forced labor, but rather to identify the presence of indicators of forced labor and factors that increased workers ’ vulnerability to labor exploitation. Nevertheless, the authors of the report claim that their research detected evidence of: (1) lack of consent (or workers could not freely leave their jobs), because of fear of violence, induced indebtedness, and retention of identity papers; and (2) menace of penalty for leaving a job, such as threat of violence and deportation. We strongly disagree with the main finding of the report that indicates the presence of forced labor in the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic. The main reason for our conclusion rests on severe flaws during the design and implementation of the research and, in particular, the worker’s survey, which render the main empirical findings severely biased, and can be expected to lead to misleading policy conclusions