Nearly ‘one in 10 children globally’ are victims of forced labor

NEW YORK — More than 40 million people were trapped as slaves last year in forced labor and forced marriages, according to the first joint effort by key anti-slavery groups to estimate the number of victims worldwide of the international crime.

The International Labor Organization, human rights group Walk Free Foundation, and International Organization for Migration said 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery in 2016 — but added this was a conservative estimate.

They estimated 24.9 million people were trapped working in factories, on construction sites, farms and fishing boats, and as domestic or sex workers, while 15.4 million people were in marriages to which they had not consented.

Almost three out of every four slaves were women and girls and one in four was a child, with modern slavery most prevalent in Africa followed by Asia and Pacific, said the report.

“Forced laborers produced some of the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and they have cleaned the buildings in which many of us live or work,” the groups said in a report released on Tuesday, stressing the crime was prevalent in all nations.

The findings mark the first

... Improved migration governance is vitally important to preventing forced labor and protecting victims.”

Report by anti-slavery groups time the groups collaborated on an international estimate and prompted calls for stronger labor rights, improved governance of migrants, action to address root causes of debt bondage, and better victim identification.

“Given that a large share of modern slavery can be traced to migration, improved migration governance is vitally important to preventing forced labor and protecting victims,” they said.

Previously the groups had used different data, definitions and methodologies, said Houtan Homayounpour, a specialist on forced labor at the ILO, the United Nations’ labor agency.

“There’s been many different numbers out there for many years. Now finally everyone has come together and has worked on developing one global estimate that becomes a reference point,” Homayounpour said.