Dikhyaa Mohanty 
In its latest report, the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO) said that 50 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021. According to the latest report by the UN agency titled, ‘Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, 28 million of these people were in forced labour and 22 million were trapped in forced marriage.
The report further added that the number of people in modern slavery has risen significantly in the last five years 10 million more people were in modern slavery in 2021 compared to 2016 global estimates. Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable.
Modern slavery occurs in almost every country in the world and cuts across ethnic, cultural and religious lines. More than half (52 per cent) of all forced labour and a quarter of all forced marriages can be found in upper-middle-income or high-income countries. Regarding forced labour, most cases (86 per cent) are found in the private sector.
Forced labour in sectors other than commercial sexual exploitation accounts for 63 per cent of all forced labour, while forced commercial sexual exploitation represents 23 per cent of all forced labour. Almost four out of five of those in forced commercial sexual exploitation are women or girls. State-imposed forced labour accounts for 14 per cent of people in forced labour.
Almost one in eight of all those in forced labour are children (3.3 million). More than half of these are in commercial sexual exploitation.
