50 million people across the world are still bound in 'modern slavery': UN

50 million people across the world are still bound in 'modern slavery': UN
September 12, 2022, 6:00 pm

United Nations

50 million people worldwide are subject to forced labour or forced marriage, the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) announced Monday (Sep 12). It warned that the number of these people has substantially increased in recent years.

AFP reports that as per the new report, despite the United Nations' 2030 deadline to end all forms of modern slavery, the number of individuals subjected to forced labour or forced marriage increased by 10 million between 2016 and 2021.

The 2021 global estimates showed that much more men, women, and children have been forced to work or marry in the period since the previous estimates released in 2017.

It said 27.6 million people, or 3.5 people in every 1,000 worldwide, are in situations of forced labor, more than 3.3 million of whom are children, and 22 million who were forced into forced marriage.

That means that almost one in every 150 individuals worldwide is a victim of modern-day slavery.

One in five people who are compelled to work are children, and the survey stated that more than half of them are engaged in commercial sexual exploitation.

Child marriages and teenage pregnancies are costing Uganda's social economic progress and not conducive to the country's wealth creation and prosperity - Photo. Pixabay

Out of the total, Asia and the Pacific host more than half with 15.1 people facing forced labor in the region, while 4.1 million people are forced to work in Europe and Central Asia, 3.8 million in Africa, 3.6 million in the Americas, and 900,000 people in the Arab States.

According to the ILO, migrant workers were more than three times more likely to experience forced labour than domestic workers, with more than half of all cases occurring in upper-middle-income or high-income nations.

Modern slavery in UK records an increase up to 62% on the previous year

In the lead-up to the FIFA soccer World Cup, which begins in November, Qatar was mentioned in the report. The nation is under fire for allegedly violating labour laws in relation to migrants working there.

The ILO study also made mentioned concerns regarding forced labour in several regions of China.

"Nothing can justify the persistence of this fundamental abuse of human rights," said Guy Ryder, head of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

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