The World's Slave Markets Are Alive And Well

(Slavery is a problem around the world and very difficult to measure. The following examples are listed in geographical order and not in terms of the magnitude of the problem.)

1. US: An estimated 20,000 people are trafficked into the US annually - many are forced into prostitution.
2. Dominican Republic: Campaigners say hundreds of thousands of Haitians are rounded up near the border and made to work on Dominican sugar plantations.
3. Brazil: Up to 25,000 people are said to be working as slave labourers - most of them clearing Amazonian forests.
4. Mauritania: Despite its abolition in 1981, chattel slavery is still strong - up to 1m people are allegedly held as "inheritable property".
5. Sudan: Campaigners say northern militias continue to take women and children in slave raids in the south.
6. Europe: Tens of thousands of women and girls are cheated, abducted and forced into prostitution right across Europe.
7. UAE: Every year hundreds of boys are reportedly trafficked from South Asia to the UAE and other Gulf states to race camels.
8. Pakistan: Men, women and children are bonded into forced labour in agriculture and industry, campaigners say.
9. Burma: Forced labour is reportedly used on a growing number infrastructure projects.
10. Thailand: Thousands of girls are sex slaves for tourists.
(Sources: ILO, American Anti-Slavery Group, US state department.)

Human Trafficking Reaches to High Alert Around World -- Voice of America

The U.S. State Department estimates that 800,000 human trafficking victims cross international borders each year. The United States is often a destination for many of these victims, where they are held in what many human rights activists consider modern day slavery. Some of those activists participated in the Human Rights Accords in Dayton Ohio, a two-day conference to help raise awareness about the problems victims face. The conference occurred this week as U.S. law enforcement agencies are engaged in a nationwide crackdown on human trafficking.

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My Comment: As terrible as these stats are, they still leave out huge swaths of people who can be considered as slaves. My focus has always been on the use of child soldiers in conflict zones. Their numbers are in the tens of thousands in Africa alone, but they are still not considered as slaves by most international organizations, but as abused children in war zones.