A voice against modern slavery

The 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that 45.8 million people are subject to some form of modern slavery in 167 countries. The countries with the highest estimated prevalence of modern slavery by the proportion of their population are North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India, and Qatar. In Uzbekistan, the government continues to subject its citizens to forced labour in the annual cotton harvest.

The governments that have the strongest response to modern slavery are The Netherlands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, Belgium and Norway.

Theresa May, the new British prime minister, recently announced that £33.5 million from the UK’s aid budget will go towards funding overseas initiatives to deal with human trafficking, alongside a new taskforce to tackle modern slavery.