Unfortunately, slavery is still practiced in today’s world. It is easy to find various statistics from a variety of sources on which countries allow and even sanction various forms of slavery.  It is still practiced in such countries as Mauritania and the Sudan (borgenproject.org/eight-facts-chattel-slavery)  In Mauritania as many as one in 25 people are enslaved (washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s) Slavery still exists in the world as the following statistics demonstrate.

1. 1. India (18.4 million)
   2. China (3.4 million)
   3. Pakistan (2.1 million)
   4. Bangladesh (1.5 million)
   5. Indonesia (1.22 million)
   6. Uzbekistan (1.2 million)
   7. North Korea (1.1 million)
      1. (borgenproject.org/countries-that-still-have-slavery)

This source says there is a total of 27.7 million slaves in the world today.  However, different websites give different totals.  Reliefweb.int states the following.

North Korea has the world’s highest rate of slavery, with about one in 10 people enslaved, followed by Eritrea (9.3%) Burundi (4%), Central African Republic (2.2%), Afghanistan (2.2%), Mauritania (2.1%), South Sudan (2%), Pakistan (1.7%), Cambodia (1.7%) and Iran (1.6%). India is home to the largest number of slaves globally, with 8 million, followed by China (3.86 million), Pakistan (3.19 million), North Korea (2.64 million), Nigeria (1.39 million), Iran (1.29 million), Indonesia (1.22 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1 million), Russia (794,000) and the Philippines (784,000). (reliefweb.int/report/world/which-countries-have-highest-rates-modern-slavery-and-most-victims)

As percentages so it’s difficult to convert them into actual numbers. But obviously, any form of slavery is too much.  consider the information from globalslaveryindex.org and news.gallup.com.

An estimated 40.3 million men, women, and children were victims of modern slavery on any given day in 2016. 1 Of these, 24.9 million people were in forced labour and 15.4 million people were living in a forced marriage. Women and girls are vastly over-represented, making up 71 percent of victims. Modern slavery is most prevalent in Africa, followed by the Asia and the Pacific region. (globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/global-findings)

Modern slavery is present in some form or another in 167 countries, according to a new report released Tuesday from the Walk Free Foundation. The organization’s 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that 45.8 million people are in some type of modern slavery, enslaved through “human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage or commercial sexual exploitation.” (news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/192101/new-report-shows-modern-slavery-exists-worldwide.aspx)

Conclusion

As is unfortunately obvious from the quotes above, slavery still exists in the world today. My research shows that the lowest number of slaves in the world today is 27.7 million (borgenproject.org/countries-that-still-have-slavery), with the largest being 45.8 million (news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/192101/new-report-shows-modern-slavery-exists-worldwide.aspx). The kind of slavery differ from country to country and include such things as forced marriages, forced labor, sexual exploitation, debt bondage, etc. it seems to be more prevalent in underdeveloped countries, but is not restricted to them. It will take a lot more work to abolish the enslavement of one person to another.

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