As difficult as it is to believe in this day and age, nearly 36 million people are living as slaves around the world today.
According to Reuters, a new report by the Walk Free Foundation, an Australia-based human rights group, has found that 35.8 million people are enslaved today. These people are being trafficked for sex work, are trapped in debt bondage, or being exploited for forced labor.
The countries where human slavery is most prevalent are Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Qatar and India.
According to the index of 167 countries, India holds the top spot for the largest number of slaves with up to 14.3 million people living in servitude ranging from prostitution to forced labor.
The report also found that hereditary slavery is deeply entrenched in the West African country of Mauritania, where four percent of the population of 3.9 million is estimated to be enslaved.
Next in line is Uzbekistan where citizens are forced to pick cotton every year to meet state-imposed cotton quotas.
In Haiti, the practice of sending poor children to stay with richer acquaintances or relatives routinely leads to abuse and forced labor.
Ranked fourth was Qatar.
“The tiny Gulf state relies heavily on migrants to build its mega-projects including soccer stadiums for the 2022 World Cup,” Reuters reports. “It has come under scrutiny by rights groups over its treatment of migrant workers, most from Asia, who come to toil on construction sites, oil projects or work as domestic help,”
“From children denied an education by being forced to work or marry early, to men unable to leave their work because of crushing debts they owe to recruitment agents, to women and girls exploited as unpaid, abused domestic workers, modern slavery has many faces,” the report said.
“It still exists today, in every country – modern slavery affects us all.”
Slavery is defined as “the control or possession of people in such a way as to deprive them of their freedom with the intention of exploiting them for profit or sex, usually through violence, coercion or deception,” Reuters reports. “The definition includes indentured servitude, forced marriage and the abduction of children to serve in wars.”
The report also ranked world governments according to their response to slavery, with the U.S., Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Britain, Georgia and Austria having the strongest response.
North Korea, Iran, Syria, Eritrea, Libya, Uzbekistan, and Iraq are among the countries with the worst response.
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