Why one in every 150 people in the world is in slavery – The Goa Spotlight

The ILO says that 27.6 million people are forced to do forced labour.

Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to this. These are people from poor countries who are recruited to work abroad in industries such as construction, agriculture, garment making and domestic chores, who are stuck in these jobs and cannot travel home.

“We estimate that there are four billion people in the world who are not protected by the rule of law,” said Euan Fraser of the International Justice Mission UK, which works to end violence against people living in poverty.

“People are trapped in forced labor and trafficked when employers can exploit them with impunity.”

Datta says India may be the worst country for forced labour.

“The big concern is the use of forced labor in places like brickyards and the use of child labor,” he says.

It is believed that 4.9 million women and children worldwide are forced into sex work.

“The trauma of that kind of slavery is perhaps worse than the trauma of fighting a war,” says Datta. “And there's a stigma attached, so it's difficult for survivors to talk about it. It can take years for survivors to recover from the physical and psychological damage.”

Private employers are responsible for 86% of forced labor in the world (including forced sex work). The ILO estimates that employers worldwide earn US$150 billion from forced labour.

The organization says $51.8 billion of that money was raised by employers in the Asia-Pacific region from 15.1 million people in forced labor. Another US$ 46.9 million was raised in developed countries and in the European Union.

However, says the ILO, the region with the most people in modern slavery compared to anywhere else in the world, as a proportion of population, is the Gulf Arab states – with 5.3 out of every 1,000 people imprisoned at work. 

Euan Fraser of the International Justice Mission UK says the number of people trapped in forced labor is on the rise because of the pandemic.

“Because of covid, many people were stuck abroad or lost their jobs. They were more desperate for money and therefore more vulnerable to traffickers”, he says.

“It was a perfect storm for the rise of slavery.”