Modern Slavery: The Most-Afflicted Countries

Slavery used to look like this, then it evolved
into this, and today it looks like this.

In fact, there are an estimated 45.8 million
people living in modern slavery across 167

different countries.

They fall into three general categories: children
held in the commercial sex trade; adults held

in the commercial sex trade; and any other
laborer made to work through force, fraud,

or coercion.

The trafficking victim often looks like anybody
else at work in a mine, on a farm, in a factory.

Many are lured by promises of a steady job
in another country, only to have their passports

confiscated when they arrive.

However, many slaves work in their native
countries or even the cities where they were

born.

According to the The Global Slavery Index
these ten countries are home to the most modern

slaves.

They each suffer from income inequality, discrimination
and classism, and entrenched corruption.

Number ten, Indonesia, produces about 35%
of the world’s palm oil.

The many small palm plantations present an
immense challenge to inspectors trying to

crackdown on child labor.

The country’s many islands are also home
to tens of thousands of enslaved fisherman

trafficked from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and
Cambodia.

Number nine is the Democratic Republic of
Congo. 20,000 of the DRC’s more than 870,000

slaves live in one of the most hellish landscapes
on the planet, a vast ore mine in the east

of the country.

The terrorist group Boko Haram gets overshadowed
by ISIS, although it kills more people.

When it comes to enslavement, one of its tactics
is to give Nigerian entrepreneurs loans and

then force them to join their group if they
fail to repay fast enough.

Seventh is Russia.

55% of the slaves there work in construction.

Foreigners are lured mainly from nearby Azerbaijan,
the “stans,” Ukraine, and North Korea—thanks

to this border on the far eastern edge of
Russia.

The North Korean government is the world’s
largest single slaveholder.

Not only does it force more than one million
of its people to toil in labor camps and other

similarly hopeless situations, but it actually
loans out some people to work in neighboring

China and Russia, then pockets most of their
wages.

This exploitation generates about $2.3B each
year for the Kim Jong-un regime.

The fifth most enslaved country, Uzbekistan,
is the world’s sixth largest producer of

cotton.

It has benefited from forced labor, as the
government puts more than 1 million people

to work using threats of debt bondage, heavy
fines, asset confiscation, and police intimidation.

Slave recruiters in Bangladesh promise poor
families that their boys will be given a job,

only to be enslaved on a faraway island and
beaten to clean fish for up to 24 hours straight.

Often, these fish are exported as cat food
for our pets.

Sometimes, the boys meet a gruesome death
when they are eaten by tigers while searching

for firewood.

Third is Pakistan, which has suffered through
decades of conflict, terrorism, and displacement—especially

along its northwestern border with Afghanistan.

It’s provinces have not raised the minimum
age of marriage, which has allowed the widespread

problem of forced and child weddings to continue.

Over 250 million Chinese have migrated within
the country to find better opportunities,

creating the ideal conditions for human trafficking.

Each year, 58 million children are ‘left
behind’ as their parents search of work

in the China’s many booming cities.

Every year, up to 70,000 children fall into
forced begging, illegal adoption, and sex

slavery.

And number one is India, which has - by far
- the most victims of modern slavery.

While economic growth has greatly reduced
the percentage of its citizens living in poverty,

the country’s sheer size still results in
more than 270 million Indians living on less

than $2/day.

It’s unsurprising that intergenerational
bonded labor, forced child labor, commercial

sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced
recruitment into nonstate armed groups, and

forced marriage all exist in India.

The government has already created many of
the laws necessary to fight the epidemic,

but the challenge is enforcing those laws
and tracking improvements and areas of continued

need.

On the flip side, these are the countries
rated as the ten best at fighting modern slavery.

As you can see, no country has completely
eradicated the problem and leaders on this

issue — like the United States — can even
contribute to it by consuming products that

were, at some point in their supply chain,
touched by slave labor.

While it can be hopeless to be a slave, the
rest of us can help by raising awareness,

helping an anti-slavery group, or pressuring
government officials around the world to take

action.

Kevin Bales, a professor of contemporary slavery
and the lead author of the study on which

this video is based, described to NPR’s
Fresh Air one of the many instances where

he’s seen slaves being freed.

[Fresh Air’s Dave Davies] “Can you share
an example of where that’s worked, where

locals with the support of the organization
have liberated slaves?”

[Dr. Kevin Bales] “Oh sure, I’ve got lots
of those in fact.

But I think the one that I most find rather
thrilling, myself, is how in Northern India,

more than ten years ago, we began to work
with a local organization.

Those young men who had come to freedom began
to operate with our support to go into other

villages where the entire village was enslaved
in hereditary slavery, working in quarries.

Because they were the same ethnicity, they
would slip in in the evenings and they would

meet with people while they were having their
supper and they would say, ‘oh, so who do

you work for around here?

Oh, you all work for the same person?

Oh, you’re all working in the mines?

But where’s the school?

Oh there is no school.’

And they’d start this Socratic dialogue
that would lead in time to an awakening of

an understanding of an alternative.

It’s important to remember that when you’re
in hereditary slavery, you have no notion

of freedom.

But when the image and truth of freedom is
awakened in your mind, people really do become

unstoppable.

There would come a time when those young men
would say, ‘you know, I used to be in the

same situation, I used to live in a village
just like this one, but now we have a school

and we even have a clinic.

We have jobs and so forth.’

And then people would say, ‘how do you get
there?’

And then, what we found there is that in those
villages, the women would step forward even

though it’s a very male dominated society,
the women would step forward and say we will

lead this even if it leads to our deaths.

Because, they would say - not to me, but to
my women colleagues - ‘we don’t want our

daughters to be raped the way we were raped
by the slaveholders, by the slavemasters.

And they would push that along.”

You can learn more about this study through
the link below and you can help spread this

video by hitting the like button and sharing
it with your friends.

Thanks for watching.

Until next time, for TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.