Download:Geneva (ILO News) – Nearly 21 million people are
victims of forced labour across the world, trapped in jobs which
they were coerced or deceived into and which they cannot leave,
according to the ILO’s new global estimate. The Asia-Pacific
region accounts for the largest number of forced labourers in
the world – 11.7 million (56 per cent) of the global total,
followed by Africa at 3.7 million (18 per cent) and Latin
America with 1.8 million victims (9 per cent). |Victims of
forced labour by region| The head of the ILO’s Special Action
Programme to Combat Forced Labour, Beate Andrees, says that the
methodology has been revised and improved since the ILO’s
initial estimate in 2005 and the numbers are more robust now.
“We have come a long way over the last seven years since we
first put an estimate on how many people were forced into labour
or services across the world. We have also made good progress
ensuring most countries now have legislation which criminalises
forced labour, human trafficking and sla