Modern-day slavery traps 36 million: report
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 18 November, 2014, 4:10am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 18 November, 2014, 4:10am
Agence France-Presse in Paris
An Uzbek woman picks up cotton in a field outside Tashkent. Photo: Reuters
Forced to pick cotton, grow cannabis, prostitute themselves, fight wars or clean up after the wealthy - some 35.8 million people are trapped in modern-day slavery, a new report says.
The second annual Global Slavery Index said new methods showed some 20 per cent more people were enslaved across the world than originally thought.
"There is an assumption that slavery is an issue from a bygone era. Or that it only exists in countries ravaged by war and poverty," said Andrew Forrest, chairman of the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation which produced the report.
Its definition of slavery includes debt bondage, forced marriage and the sale or exploitation of children, as well as human trafficking and forced labour.
The report, covering 167 countries, said slavery contributed to the production of at least 122 goods from 58 countries. The International Labour Organisation estimates profits from forced labour are US$150 billion.
"From the Thai fisherman trawling fishmeal, to the Congolese boy mining diamonds, from the Uzbek child picking cotton, to the Indian girl stitching footballs... their forced labour is what we consume," read the report.
The biggest offender, with the highest proportion of its population enslaved, remains the West African nation Mauritania, where slavery of black Moors by Berber Arabs is entrenched. Second was Uzbekistan where, every autumn, the government forces more than a million people, including children, to harvest cotton. The highest numbers of slaves were found in India with an estimated 14.29 million.
Countries like Qatar in the Middle East were a major destination for men and women from Africa and Asia who were lured with promises of well-paid jobs only to find themselves exploited as domestic workers or in the construction industry.
