By Matija Šerić
In the 21st century—a time often portrayed as the pinnacle of the struggle for human rights and human dignity—behind the glitter of technological progress and global development lies a dark reality: contemporary slavery. Although the classical form of slavery was officially abolished in the 19th century, its successors have survived in silence. Forced labor, brutal worker exploitation, sexual slavery, and human trafficking continue to devastate the lives of millions. Moreover, these forms of injustice are not diminishing; they are expanding, becoming one of the most serious challenges of the modern world. Modern slavery knows no borders—it is present in almost every country, disregards ethnic, cultural, and religious differences, and reminds us that humanity’s progress is incomplete as long as freedom is not guaranteed for all.
50 Million Slaves
The international human rights group fighting to eradicate modern slavery, Walk Free, published the Global Slavery Index, which presents alarming data. Since its previous report in 2018, the 2023 report estimates that an additional 10 million people have become victims of modern slavery, bringing the total number of people living in slavery to 50 million. Of these 50 million people deprived of freedom, 28 million are subjected to forced labor, while 22 million live in forced marriages. Every fourth enslaved person is a child, while women and girls make up 54% of the enslaved population. Experts from Walk Free claim that the increase is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, worsening climate change, the rise in conflicts, and growing consumerism worldwide. At the same time, they emphasize that the growth of slavery is also the result of failures by national governments and leaders of large multinational corporations, as both groups failed to recognize the problem and act.
Modern Slavery in 2025
Definition of Contemporary Slavery
The aforementioned organization describes contemporary slavery as:
“a set of specific legal concepts including forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, and practices similar to slavery, as well as human trafficking. While modern slavery is not defined by law, it is used as an umbrella term to draw attention to the similarities across these legal concepts. Modern slavery is a hidden crime that affects every country in the world. It is found in many industries, including garment manufacturing, mining, and agriculture, and in many contexts—from private homes to camps for internally displaced persons and refugees. Modern slavery affects all of us, from the food we consume to the goods we buy.”
Alarming Conditions and Negative Trends
It is not surprising that countries with poor human rights records lead the rankings of modern slavery. From first to tenth place, the countries with the highest prevalence of slavery per capita are: North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tajikistan, the UAE, Russia, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. However, when countries are assessed purely by numbers, the world’s largest democracy, India, has the highest number of people trapped in modern slavery, followed by China, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, Bangladesh, and the United States. The authors of the report note that six of these ten countries are members of the elite G20 group of the world’s most developed economies.
It is estimated that these countries (India, China, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, and the United States) together export goods worth $468 billion annually that are potentially produced through forced labor. These goods include electronics, machinery, clothing, palm oil, and solar panels. This figure is $100 billion higher than in the 2018 report. “From the cotton in the shirt on our backs, to the phone in our hands, to the solar panels we all want to put on our roofs, there is a trail of extreme exploitation—modern slavery—affecting tens of millions of people in our world,” said Grace Forrest, founder of Walk Free.
Some States Are Trying to Eradicate Slave Practices
In the past five years, four more countries (Australia, France, Germany, and Norway) have introduced modern slavery laws that compel larger companies to examine their supply chains and eliminate slavery where it is found. An additional 15 countries have criminalized human trafficking, bringing the total to 137, and nearly 150 countries now have modern action plans against slavery, according to the report. Although there has been some progress, global crises have forced millions more into slave labor.
For example, the sudden surge in demand for medical products during the pandemic, combined with the shutdown of many businesses and sudden job losses, created an environment ripe for worker exploitation. Severe economic hardship forced some families to send their children to work or sell their daughters into child marriages in order to earn money and have one less mouth to feed. Armed conflicts have forced many people to leave their homes and seek refuge in new countries, where they have become victims of human traffickers.
How Qatar built stadiums with forced labor
Types of Slavery
The most significant forms of contemporary slavery include forced labor, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, child enslavement, forced marriage, hereditary slavery, unbearable labor in global supply chains, work in quarries and mines, and digital slavery.
People are often forced to work under threats, exposed to mental and physical violence, or restricted or deprived of their freedom. This form of slavery frequently involves work in harsh conditions with minimal or no compensation. Workers are unable to leave their jobs because they will not receive wages which, though meager, are considered the employer’s property until the end of the agreed period, or because they must repay a debt to their employer through hard labor, or because they are migrant workers whose documents are held by their employer. This most commonly occurs in agriculture, construction, and the textile industry. 86% of forced labor cases occur in private companies.
Migrants are particularly vulnerable to forced labor and human trafficking, whether due to irregular or poorly managed migration or unfair and unethical recruitment practices. According to data from the International Labour Organization (ILO), migrant workers are more than three times as likely to be subjected to forced labor as non-migrant workers. Notably, more than half (52%) of all forced labor takes place in upper-middle-income or high-income countries.
Exploitation of Women and Children
Human traffickers falsely recruit workers by offering attractive and promising jobs, while in reality they intend to deprive them of freedom so they can be forced to perform hard physical labor, be drawn into criminal activities or prostitution, or become victims of other forms of abuse such as organ harvesting. Sexual exploitation involves forcing individuals to participate in sexual activities without their consent, such as forced prostitution, sex trafficking, or forced marriages. Four out of five sexually exploited persons are women.
Children are a particularly vulnerable group, exposed to forced labor or sexual exploitation. They often work in clothing and footwear factories and in agriculture, but are sometimes also involved in wars and armed conflicts as cannon fodder. Every eighth person subjected to forced labor is under the age of 18. Many children working in Turkish textile factories are immigrants who fled Syria with their families. They typically work shifts of 8 to 12 hours, six or seven days a week, for just $15 a day.
