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SLAVERY: ALMOST 46 MILLION ENSLAVED; 28 PER CENT HIGHER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT, LANDMARK REPORT FINDS

DAVID ADAMS reports on the findings of the latest Global Slavery Index…

Almost 46 million people are living in slavery across the globe, according to the latest figures from the Global Slavery Index.

Released in London earlier this week, the figure of 45.8 million represented a rise of 28 per cent – or 10 million more people – than previous estimates had revealed, a fact which the index’s authors ascribed to enhanced data collection and research methodology.

“We call on governments of the top 10 economies of the world to enact laws, at least as strong as the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, with a budget and capability to ensure organisations are held to account for modern slavery in their supply chains, and to empower independent oversight.”

– Andrew Forrest, founder of the Walk Free Foundation

The index, which is published by Australian mining billionaire and philanthropist Andrew Forrest’s Walk Free Foundation, shows that North Korea has the highest prevalence of slavery at 4.37 per cent of its 25 million population.

It says there is “pervasive evidence” that government-sanctioned forced labour occurs in an extensive system of prison labour camps and that women are subjected to forced marriage and commercial sexual exploitation in China and other neighbouring states.

In terms of prevalence, North Korea is followed by Uzbekistan (3.97 per cent of the population), Cambodia (1.65 per cent), India (1.4 per cent), and Qatar (1.46 per cent).

India, meanwhile, where the government has made significant progress in tackling the issue, still has the highest number of slaves – 18.35 million people – followed by China (3.39 million).

Together with Pakistan (2.13 million), Bangladesh (1.53 million) and Uzbekistan (1.23 million), these countries account for almost 58 per cent of the world’s slaves.

The index, which defines modern slavery as people who are enslaved through human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage or commercial sexual exploitation, also examines government responses to the issue and found some significant progress has been made by many governments but that much work had yet to be done in regards to tackling the problem.

Mr Forrest said in a statement accompanying the release of the data that the leaders of the world’s top economies should provide an example to other nations in how they act on the issue.

“We call on governments of the top 10 economies of the world to enact laws, at least as strong as the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, with a budget and capability to ensure organisations are held to account for modern slavery in their supply chains, and to empower independent oversight,” he said. “Leaders of the world’s economies must bring the power of business to the issue by requiring a focus on supply chain transparency.”

Mr Forrest said businesses that don’t actively look for forced labour within their supply chains “are standing on a burning platform”. “Business leaders who refuse to look into the realities of their own supply chains are misguided and irresponsible.”

The index, which drew on 42,000 interviews conducted in 25 countries, found that slavery existed in all 167 countries examined but that nations such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK and US as well as a host of European nations only had an estimated prevalence of 0.02 per cent of their populations.

Some of these nations – Netherlands, US, UK, Sweden and Australia – were also among those whose governments had taken the strongest action to address the issue. Aside from North Korea, the governments in Iran, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Hong Kong SAR and China had taken the weakest action to address slavery.

While some of the latter were nations characterised by government complicity in slavery, low levels of political will to tackle the issue or high levels of conflict or political instability, other countries which had taken little action to address the issue, such as Qatar, Singapore, Japan and South Korea, were wealthier and more stable.

~ www.globalslaveryindex.org

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