May 24,2023: Rights group Walk Free says up to 50 million people worldwide were experiencing forced labour or forced marriage in 2021.
North Korea, Eritrea and Mauritania have the highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world, according to the 2023 Global Slavery Index, which notes a “worsening” situation globally since its last survey five years earlier.
The report published on Wednesday said an estimated 50 million people were “living in situations of modern slavery” in 2021, an increase of 10 million over 2016 when the problem was last measured.
The figure includes some 28 million people in forced labour and 22 million living in a forced marriage.
The situation is worsening “against a backdrop of increasing and more complex armed conflicts, widespread environmental degradation” and effects from the coronavirus pandemic, among other factors, the investigation said.
Compiled by the human rights charity Walk Free, the report defines modern slavery as encompassing “forced labour, forced or servile marriage, debt bondage, forced commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, slavery-like practices, and the sale and exploitation of children”.
Slavery’s core principle entails “the systematic removal of a person’s freedom” — from the right to accept or refuse labour to the liberty to determine if, when and whom to marry.
By this benchmark, reclusive and authoritarian North Korea has the highest prevalence of modern slavery (104.6 per 1,000 population), according to the report.
It is followed by Eritrea (90.3) and Mauritania (32), which in 1981 became the last country in the world to make hereditary slavery illegal.
The 10 countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery have some common characteristics, including “limited protections for civil liberties and human rights”.
Many of the countries are in “volatile” regions experiencing conflict or political instability, or are home to a large population of “vulnerable people” such as refugees or migrant workers.
Also in the top 10 globally were Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, where migrant workers’ labour rights are restricted by the “kafala” sponsorship system.
Other countries in the top 10 are Turkey, “which hosts millions of refugees from Syria”, Tajikistan, Russia and Afghanistan.
While forced labour is more common in low-income countries, it is “deeply” connected to demand from higher-income countries, the report said, noting that two-thirds of all forced labour cases are linked to global supply chains.
The report said G20 countries — made up of the European Union and the world’s 19 top economies — are currently importing $468bn worth of goods that are at risk of being produced with forced labour, up from $354bn in the previous report.
Electronics remain the highest value at-risk product, followed by garments, palm oil and solar panels, in a sign of high demand for renewable energy products.
“Modern slavery permeates every aspect of our society. It is woven through our clothes, lights up our electronics, and seasons our food,” the group’s founding director Grace Forrest said.
“At its core, modern slavery is a manifestation of extreme inequality. It is a mirror held to power, reflecting who in any given society has it and who does not,” she added.
A UN report has warned that “vast areas of impunity” remain globally for people traffickers, with victims subjected to crimes ranging from sexual exploitation to organ removal.
Despite a recent trend towards more people trafficking convictions in many African and Middle Eastern countries, the report from the UN Office and Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pointed out that “the total numbers in these areas remain very low”.
“There appears to be hardly any risk for traffickers to face justice,” it said.
The report said 100 cases of organ removal had been reported over the period 2014-17, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, with cases also reported in Europe and Central and South America.
It cites research saying that in some cases there is evidence of traffickers colluding “with medical professionals, relying on corrupt and fraudulent practices”.
Perpetrators of this form of trafficking take advantage of “severe levels of vulnerability”, the UNODC says, for example people in refugee camps who are recruited “with false promises of receiving payments and/or transport to safer locations”.
However, trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation was by far the most common form found in the data compiled by the report, accounting for 59 per cent of victims detected in 2016.
The UNODC underlined the role of groups involved in various armed conflicts in using human trafficking “to finance activities or increase their workforce”, as well as for sexual slavery.
It highlighted the case of the thousands of girls and women from the Yazidi minority enslaved by the so-called Islamic State group in Iraq.
One of them, Nadia Murad, was one of the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize last year in recognition of her activism on behalf of other victims.
The UNODC said the overwhelming number of detected victims of trafficking globally were female, with just under half being adult women.
A further 23 percent being girls and the report warns that their share of the total is increasing.
After sexual exploitation, the next most common reason for trafficking was forced labour, accounting for a third of victims covered by the data and especially prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
A number of other patterns are also mentioned, such as trafficking for forced marriage, more commonly detected in South East Asia.
The total number of victims reported to the UNODC in 2016 stood at just under 25,000, an increase of more than 10,000 since 2011, with increases “more pronounced in the Americas and in Asia”.
However, the report cautions that the increase may be down to more efficient identification of victims, rather than an increase in the numbers of people being trafficked.
While Europe and the Middle East attract many victims from other parts of the world, the authors found that the majority of victims are detected in their countries of citizenship.