50m people living in modern slavery, says ILO

The ‘Global Estimates of Modern Slavery’, published on Monday says 50 million people are living in modern slavery in 2021, and of these people, 28m are in forced labour and 22m are trapped in forced marriage. The report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) further says the number of people in modern slavery has risen significantly in the last five years. Ten million more people were in modern slavery in 2021, compared to 2016 global estimates. Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable. The ILO report says no region of the world is spared from forced labour, and Asia and the Pacific is host to more than half of the global total (15.1m), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.1m), Africa (3.8m), the Americas (3.6m), and the Arab States (0.9m). However, this regional ranking changes considerably when forced labour is expressed as a proportion of the population. By this measure, forced labour is highest in the Arab States (5.3 per 1,000 people), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.4 per 1,000), the Americas and Asia and the Pacific (both at 3.5 per 1,000), and Africa (2.9 per 1,000).