Modern day slavery

World Today

A 13 year old prostitute in BangladeshIn Bangladesh, Dipa is 13 years old and has been engaged in prostitution for five months. She used to go to school, but stopped after her family could no longer afford to send her. Her two sisters are also engaged in prostitution, but clients prefer to visit Dipa as she is the youngest. She gets between four or five clients and earns about 1,200 Taka (US$15) a day. Photo credit, Pep Bonet/ NOOR

The 2016 Global Slavery Index, released June 1, estimates that 45.8 million people worldwide are still living in some form of slavery. As a part of our coverage on the issue, we reported from India and Thailand – two places still struggling with this dark reality. More details about the Index are below.


The 2016 Global Slavery Index

According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, an estimated 45.8 million people are in some form of slavery in 167 countries around the world. But 58 percent of them live in just five countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan. While North Korea has the highest proportion of slaves at 4.4 percent of its population, no country comes close to India for the sheer number of people living in slavery: 18.4 million.

This chart shows the estimated number of people living in modern slavery in 2015.

a chart of global slavery in 2015

The Global Slavery Index provides a country by country account of the estimated prevalence of modern slavery, together with information about the steps each government has taken to respond to this issue.

In previous years, the Index has been criticized for basing its scores on incomplete or out of context data. For 2016, the Index collaborated with Gallup to interview more than 42,000 respondents in 53 different languages. These interviews were combined with established contextual factors used to score the prevalence of slavery in each country. The complete methodology is available here.


India still struggles with bonded labor

Indian has the highest number of slaves which is estimated to be more than 18 million. Even though bonded labor was abolished in 1976, the country still struggles to free its victims. CCTV’s Ravinder Bawa filed this report.


Thailand attempts to crack down on slavery

An estimated 45.8 million people are enslaved across the globe. That’s ten million more than a year ago. Though Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand are near the top of the list for worst offenders, Thailand is highlighting its success in the fight against the illegal practice. CCTV’s Tony Cheng gave us this report.


Beate Andrees: Slavery figures unreliable, but still too high

Mike Walter spoke with Beate Andrees, Chief of the Fundamental Principles & Rights Branch at the International Labour Organization. They talked about the staggering number of slaves across the globe, the challenge of getting good data and what’s being done to combat the problem.