Modern slavery is hidden in plain sight and is deeply intertwined with life in every corner of the world.
Each day, people are tricked, coerced, or forced into exploitative situations that they cannot refuse or leave. Each day, we buy the products or use the services they have been forced to make or offer without realising the hidden human cost.
An estimated 50 million people were living in modern slavery on any given day in 2021, an increase of 10 million people since 2016.
These Global Estimates of Modern Slavery produced by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are the starting point for the national estimates of modern slavery for 160 countries presented here in Walk Free’s flagship report, the Global Slavery Index (GSI). Our estimates draw on thousands of interviews with survivors collected through nationally representative household surveys across 75 countries and our assessment of national-level vulnerability.
Modern slavery takes many forms and is known by many names. Essentially, it refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, or deception.
Modern slavery includes forced labour, forced or servile marriage, debt bondage, forced commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, slavery-like practices, and the sale and exploitation of children. In all its forms, it is the removal of a person’s freedom — their freedom to accept or refuse a job, their freedom to leave one employer for another, or their freedom to decide if, when, and whom to marry — in order to exploit them for personal or financial gain.
Modern slavery thrives in silence. That’s why we created the Global Slavery Index. The Index answers three key questions for 160 countries: how many people are living in modern slavery, what makes people vulnerable, and what are governments doing to address it.
To read the whole report click here
To visit the Walk Free website and learn more click here