UN: More than 20 million forced laborers worldwide < br />

2012-06-03 06:13:22 GMT+7 (ICT)

NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) -- More than 20 million people around the world are currently the victim of forced labor, the United Nations (UN) said on Saturday, but progress has been made in a number of countries to establish or improve needed legislation to criminalize such practices.

According to new estimates released by the UN International Labor Organization (ILO), 20.9 million people worldwide are now trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave.

In its 2012 Global Estimate of Forced Labor, the organization found that 11.7 million victims, or 56 percent of the global total, are in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by 3.7 million in Africa and 1.8 million in Latin America. It also found that 5.5 million forced laborers, that is 26 percent of the global total, are below the age of 18.

The ILO said forced labor takes many different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. Women and young girls are often forced into prostitution, migrants are trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers are kept at their job by illegal tactics while being paid little or nothing at all.

In the new estimates, 18.7 million people - 90 percent of the total - are exploited in the private economy, by individuals or enterprises. Of these, 4.5 million are victims of forced sexual exploitation and 14.2 million are victims of forced labor exploitation in economic activities, such as agriculture, construction, domestic work or manufacturing.

In addition, the report said another 2.2 million people are in state-imposed forms of forced labor, such as in prisons under conditions which violate ILO standards, or in work imposed by the state military or by rebel armed forces.

ILO's Special Action Program to Combat Forced Labor, Beate Andrees, said good progress has been made in ensuring most countries now have legislation in place which criminalizes forced labor, human trafficking and slavery-like practices. However, she noted that it is now necessary to focus on better identification and prosecution of forced labor and related offenses such as human trafficking.

"The successful prosecution of those few individuals who bring such misery to so many remains inadequate - this needs to change," Andrees said. "We must also ensure that the number of victims does not rise during the current economic crisis where people are increasingly vulnerable to these heinous practices."

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-06-03

Probably way more than that. If you want to eat, you have to work. So I'm forced to work for food.

The ILO said forced labor takes many different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery.

I'm not trying to make light of a serious issue, but the number is much higher than 20 million if you include people who are "trapped" in jobs they hate because they have too much debt they need to pay off.