Modern slavery is not a distant issue. It is happening today in factories, farms, fishing boats, private home, refugee camps, and across global supply chains that connect us all. According to the Global Slavery Index 2023, 50 Million people were living in modern slavery on any given day in 2021. That’s nearly 10 million more people than in 2016. Behind every number is a person, a woman forced into marriage, a child exploited for labour, a migrant worker trapped by debt, a community displaced by climate change and pushed into unsafe migration. This is not a problem of the past it is a growing crisis and it demands bold, collective action.
What Is Modern Slavery?
Modern slavery is a brutal reality for millions today. People are trapped, exploited, and denied their freedom through violence, coercion, or deception. It refers to situations where people cannot refuse or leave work or marriage because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power. It includes; forced labour, forced child marriages, human trafficking, debt bondage and sexual exploitation. In 2021 28 million people were in forced labour, 22 million people were in forced marriage and lastly, over half were women and girls and one in four were children. These are not isolated abuses they are rooted in inequality and injustice.
Modern slavery is increasing because it is driven by overlapping global crises that deepen vulnerability and weaken protections. Conflict and war displaces families, dismantles social systems, and leaves people exposed to exploitation. Climate change through droughts, floods, and extreme weather destroys livelihoods, forces migration, and increases the risks of trafficking and forced marriage. At the same time, growing economic inequality means that when poverty deepens and social safety nets collapse, people are pushed into dangerous work or exploitative relationships simply to survive. The COVID-19 pandemic further intensified unemployment, debt, and social isolation conditions that traffickers quickly exploited, modern slavery thrives where vulnerability meets impunity.
Many people assume modern slavery only exists in fragile or low-income countries. But the reality is more complex. The G20 countries import an estimated US$468 billion worth of goods annually that are at risk of being produced with forced labour, according to the Global Slavery Index (Walk Free, 2023). High-risk sectors include; electronics, garments, palm oil, solar panels and textiles. Nearly two-thirds of forced labour cases are connected to global supply chains. This means everyday products the clothes we wear, the phones we use, the food we eat may carry hidden human costs. Responsibility does not stop at national borders.
Women, Girls, and Migrants at Highest Risk
Modern slavery disproportionately impacts those who already face discrimination. Women and girls make up 68% of people in forced marriage, children represent one-quarter of all people in modern slavery and migrant workers are more than three times more likely to experience forced labour.When legal protections are weak or discriminatory policies restrict rights, exploitation becomes easier.
Are Governments Doing Enough?
Some countries have made progress. Stronger responses have been identified in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United States, Ireland, Norway, Spain, and Sweden (Walk Free, 2023). But progress is uneven and too slow. Only 16 governments meaningfully engage survivors in policy development. Many countries lack strong enforcement, survivor protection services, or mandatory human rights due diligence laws for businesses. The world is currently off track to meet the global commitment to end modern slavery by 2030.
What Needs to Happen Now
Ending modern slavery requires more than awareness. It requires systemic change. Governments must take comprehensive action to address modern slavery by strengthening social protection systems that reduce vulnerability, raising and strictly enforcing the legal age of marriage to 18 without exceptions, protecting migrant workers from exploitative recruitment practices, introducing mandatory human rights due diligence laws for businesses, and embedding anti-slavery protections into climate adaptation and humanitarian responses to ensure that crises do not further expose vulnerable populations to exploitation.
The Company shall conduct meaningful and ongoing human rights and supply chain due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for risks of forced labour, human trafficking, and other forms of modern slavery within its operations and supply chains. The Company shall prohibit and eliminate the charging of recruitment fees to workers at any stage of the hiring process, directly or indirectly. The Company further agrees to ensure fair wages, lawful working hours, and safe and healthy working conditions consistent with applicable national laws and international labour standards. In the event that exploitation, forced labour, or related abuses are identified, the Company shall take immediate corrective action and provide appropriate remedy to affected individuals, including access to compensation and support services where applicable.
Civil society and communities play a critical role in ending modern slavery by centering survivor voices in advocacy and decision making, challenging harmful social norms that perpetuate discrimination and exploitation, and demanding transparency and accountability from governments, businesses, and institutions. By elevating lived experience, confronting injustice at its roots, and holding power to account, communities can drive the cultural and systemic change necessary to prevent exploitation and protect human dignity.
Why This Matters?
Modern slavery is not accidental it reflects systems that prioritize profit over people, power over protection, and convenience over accountability but systems can change. The global response to COVID-19 showed that governments can act quickly and at scale when they treat an issue as urgent.
The same urgency must now be applied to ending modern slavery fifty million people are waiting for that urgency.
References
The Global Slavery Index (2023). Walk Free (2023)
