As per the 2016 Global Slavery Index, released by Australia-based human rights group Walk Free Foundation, an estimated 45.8 million people including women and children are subject to modern day slavery in the world. What was even worse was that the report cites India with the highest absolute numbers of people trapped in the condition with 18.35 million slaves. As incidences of slavery were reported in 167 countries, Asian nations took up all the top five slots. China came second with 3.39 million slaves, Pakistan third with 2.13 million, Bangladesh fourth with 1.53 million and then came Uzbekistan with 1.23 million. The index further said the first five countries together stood for around 58 per cent of the world's enslaved.
The research was conducted with 42,000 interviews taken in over 53 languages across 25 countries. They have statistically covered 44 per cent of the global population. North Korea has been listed as the country with the highest incidence, 4.37 per cent of the population, and the weakest government response.
Modern slavery refers to any situations of exploitation a person cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion and abuse of power.
