New Study Suggests 12.3 Million Slaves Worldwide
Traditonal forms of slavery are still used in Africa today.
About 12.3 million people have to work as slaves in the world today. Private companies use the labor of 9.8 million people from this number; over 12.4 million people are sold to slavery works. About 2.5 million more people are forced to work as slaves on account of the pressure from the state or from armed rebel groups, a report from the International Labor Organization said.
Slavery reaps an Annual Global Profit of $30 Billion
As experience often shows, exploiters remain unpunished.
According to statistics data from the above-mentioned report, the state and armed forces use about 20 percent of work captives. The remaining part works for a variety of business branches, which can be quite specific business indeed. About eleven percent of modern slaves are involved in prostitution and other fields of sex industry. Sixty-four percent of enslaved workers work in traditional and quite legal industrial branches: construction, commerce, agriculture, etc. It is almost impossible to formulate the activity of the remaining five percent of modern slaves.
Not just a crime, but a business.
The largest numbers are in poor Asian countries and Latin America, but there are more than 350,000 cases in the industrialised world.
Four-fifths of forced labour is exacted by private agents and most victims are women and children, the ILO says.
The report has uncovered a significant amount of the kinds of forced labour which have been known about for a long time.
An example is bonded labour – where children are forced to do the same jobs as their parents, without hope of release.
Modern slavery is growing in some conflict zones, with the seizure of children as soldiers or sex slaves.
The problem could be resolved in these smaller-scale non-governmental meetings, our correspondent says, because local individuals with business knowledge are more likely to uncover the practice than formal investigators.
Myanmar, or Burma, is the biggest violator of forced labor.
