Over 22 mln people enslaved in South Asia, new report says
View(s):An estimated 45.8 million men, women and children around the world are today trapped in modern slavery – 28 per cent more than previously estimated, a new report has stated. They are enslaved through human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage or commercial sexual exploitation, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, the flagship research report published by the Walk Free Foundation and released this week. In terms of absolute numbers, India remains the highest with an estimated 18.35 million enslaved people, followed by China (3.39 million), Pakistan (2.13 million), Bangladesh (1.53 million) and Uzbekistan (1.23 million).
Combined, these five countries account for almost 58 per cent of the world’s enslaved or 26.6 million people. The 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that 28 per cent more people are enslaved than reported in the 2014 edition. This significant increase is due to enhanced data collection and research methodology. Survey research for the 2016 Global Slavery Index included over 42,000 interviews conducted in 53 languages across 25 countries, including 15 state-level surveys in India. These representative surveys cover 44 per cent of the global population, the report said. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the top five countries with the highest number of people trapped in modern slavery in absolute numbers.
Forced and child marriage persists in countries throughout the region, particularly in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. From the five main countries in South Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, India has the highest incidence (1.4 per cent of the population) of slavery and Sri Lanka the lowest 0.22 per cent). The Global Slavery Index also tracks government actions and responses to modern slavery. Of the 161 assessed, 124 countries have criminalised human trafficking in line with the UN Trafficking Protocol and 96 have developed national action plans to coordinate government response. The governments leading the charge against modern slavery are the Netherlands, the US, UK, Sweden, Australia, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, Belgium and Norway.
“While India remains the country with the highest number of enslaved people in absolute terms, it has made significant progress in introducing measures to tackle the problem. It has criminalised trafficking, child prostitution and forced marriage. The Indian government is massively reforming, consolidating and modernising its legislation against all forms of human trafficking which will also now include forced labour. The Indian government is also expanding the number of anti-trafficking units across the country and taking steps to create a central national investigation agency. The government is also working hard to improve its existing victim protection and recovery support,” the report said.
Andrew Forrest, Chairman and Founder of Walk Free Foundation, said eradicating slavery makes sense, morally, politically, logically and economically, and called on the governments of the world’s leading economies to provide an example to others by enacting and implementing robust anti-slavery measures. “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. Leaders of the world’s major economies must bring the power of business to this issue, by requiring a focus on supply chain transparency,” he was reported as saying.