The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) on Monday said forced labor and marriage have increased significantly over the last five years, reported The TRT World.
According to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, published by the International Labor Organization (ILO), International Organization for Migration (IOM) and international human rights group Walk Free, some 50 million people were found to be living in modern slavery at the end of last year.
Forced labour accounted for 27.6 million of those in modern slavery in 2021, out of which more than 3.3 million are children, and forced marriage for 22 million. That means nearly one out of every 150 people in the world are caught up in modern forms of slavery.
As per the ILO report, more than half of all forced labour occurred in either upper-middle income or high-income countries, with migrant workers more than three times as likely to be affected.
The report mentioned the name of Qatar, which has faced widespread allegations of labor rights violations relating to migrants working there in the run up to the FIFA soccer World Cup, starting in November.
The labour organizations also pointed to worrying trends such as “commercial sexual exploitation” affecting nearly one in four people who are subject to forced labour and with the poor, women and children hardest hit.
The UN had set a goal to eradicate all forms of modern slavery by 2030, but the number of people caught up in forced labor or forced marriage ballooned by 10 million between 2016 and 2021.
The ILO report said that the situation had been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which worsened conditions and swelled debt levels for many workers, as well as armed conflicts and climate change, leaving people in extreme poverty and forcing more to migrate.
The report proposes a number of recommended actions which should be taken to progress towards ending modern slavery. The measures include ending state-imposed forced labor, improving and enforcing laws and labor inspections, stronger measures to combat forced labor and trafficking in business and supply chains and raising the legal age of marriage to 18 without exception.
