Global Estimates of Modern Slavery

On 12^th September, 2022, the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage report was published by the International Labour Organization (ILO), International Organization for Migration (IOM) and international human rights group Walk Free. Some of the major findings include:

Forced Labour: There are 27.6 million people in situations of forced labour on any given day.

• Women and girls make up 11.8 million of the total in forced labour.
• More than 3.3 million of all those in forced labour are children.
• Asia and the Pacific is host to more than half of the global total (15.1 million), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.1 million), Africa (3.8 million), the Americas (3.6 million), and the Arab States (0.9 million).
• By this measure, forced labour is highest in the Arab States (5.3 per thousand people), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.4 per thousand), the Americas and Asia and the Pacific (both at 3.5 per thousand), and Africa (2.9 per thousand).
• The share of migrants in the group of people in forced labour is much higher than the share of migrants in the overall labour force.

Forced Marriage: An estimated 22 million people were living in situations of forced marriage on any given day in 2021.

• This is a 6.6 million increase in the number of people living in a forced marriage between 2016 and 2021, which translates to a rise in prevalence from 2.1 to 2.8 per thousand people.
• Nearly two-thirds of all forced marriages, an estimated 14.2 million people, are in Asia and the Pacific. This is followed by 14.5 per cent in Africa (3.2 million) and 10.4 per cent in Europe and Central Asia (2.3 million).
• Prevalence of forced marriage is highest in the Arab States (4.8 per thousand population), followed by Asia and the Pacific (3.3 per thousand population).