Sex slave‚ drug trade and hard labour - how South Africans are enslaved

31 May 2016 - 19:30 By Julia Madibogo

Over 45 million people are enslaved around the world. This is according to the Global Slavery Index 2016 report‚ which was released by the Walk Free Foundation on Tuesday.The report states that a total of 45‚8 million people are trapped in modern slavery through human trafficking‚ forced labour‚ debt bondage‚ forced servile marriage and commercial sex exploitation.Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for approximately 13.6% (6‚245‚800) of the world's total enslaved population.Within the region‚ the Democratic Republic of the Congo‚ Sudan‚ South Sudan‚ Somalia‚ and the Central African Republic have the highest prevalence of modern slavery (all 1.13%).As evident from surveys conducted in Ghana‚ Nigeria‚ South Africa and Ethiopia by Walk Free Foundation‚ slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa takes the form of forced labour and forced marriage.In Ghana‚ survey results suggest that there are an estimated 103‚300 people enslaved in that country‚ of which 85% are in forced labour‚ and 15% are in forced marriage. For forced labour‚ the main industries of concern are farming and fishing‚ retail sales and then manual labour and factory work.In Nigeria‚ survey results suggest that forced labour is predominantly within the domestic sector‚ although it was impossible to survey in three regions due to high conflict.In South Africa‚ the industries most reported in the survey include the commercial sex industry‚ manual labour industries such as construction‚ manufacturing and factory work‚ and drug trafficking.In terms of absolute numbers‚ India remains the highest with an estimated 18.35 million enslaved people‚ followed by China (3.39m)‚ Pakistan (2.13m)‚ Bangladesh (1.53m) and Uzbekistan (1.23m). Combined‚ these five countries account for almost 58% of the world’s enslaved‚ or 26.6 million people.Survey research for the 2016 Global Slavery Index included over 42‚000 interviews conducted in 53 languages across 25 countries‚ including 15 state-level surveys in India. These representative surveys cover 44% of the global population.The full report can be viewed here: www.globalslaveryindex.org..

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