Sixty-six years after
independence, India
has the dubious distinction of being home to half of the world’s modern day
slaves. The first Global Slavery Index has estimated that 13.3 million to 14.7
million people — roughly equal to the population of Kolkata — live like slaves
in the country.
The index, published by the
Australia-based Walk Free Foundation, ranked 162 countries based on three
factors that include estimated prevalence of modern slavery, a measure of child
marriage and a measure of human trafficking in and out of a country. Modern
slavery includes slavery, practices such as debt bondage, forced marriage and
sale or exploitation of children as well as human trafficking and forced
labour.
According to the index, there are 29.6 million
people in modern slavery globally. India
leads the world, followed by China ,
Pakistan , Nigeria , Ethiopia ,
Russia , Thailand , Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh . These 10 countries
account for 76% of the world’s modern slaves. India
ranks fourth in terms of modern-day slaves as a percentage of the population,
just after Mauritania , Haiti and Pakistan . In Mauritania , 4%
of people are regarded as slaves largely because they inherit the status from
their ancestors.
The study says that in India there’s
some exploitation of foreign nationals, but by far the largest proportion of
slaves are Indians exploited by other Indians within the country, particularly
through debt bondage and bonded labour. India is one of the few countries
that has not ratified the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention.
The country with the second
highest number of enslaved is China ,
with an estimated 2.8 to 3.1 million in modern slavery. This includes forced
labour in many parts of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced
begging, commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, says the study. Pakistan is estimated
to have 2 to 2.2 million in slavery.
“It would be comforting to
think that slavery is a relic of history, but it remains a scar on humanity on
every continent. This is the first slavery index but it can already shape
national and global efforts to root out modern slavery across the world,” said
Nick Grono, CEO of Walk Free Foundation (WFF).
The index was created in
consultation with an international panel of experts and has been endorsed by
former US
secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former British prime ministers Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown, former Australian PM Julia Gillard, and philanthropists Bill
Gates, Sir Richard Branson and Mo Ibrahim. WFF was founded by Andrew Forrest,
the chairman of Fortescue Metals Group, and his wife Nicola in May this year.
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