NEW DELHI: India has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of people in the world trapped in modern slavery with 18.35 million victims of forced labour, ranging from prostitution and begging, according to a new report, which estimated that nearly 46 million people are enslaved globally. This is a cause of grave concern for all Indians.

According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, released by Australia-based human rights group ‘Walk Free Foundation’ on 30 May, an estimated 45.8 million people, including women and children, are subject to some form of modern slavery in the world, compared to 35.8 million in 2014.

Modern slavery refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion and abuse of power or deception. The research included over 42,000 interviews conducted in 53 languages across 25 countries, including 15 State-level surveys in India. These representative surveys covered 44 per cent of the global population.

The report said India has the highest absolute numbers of people trapped in slavery with 18.35 million slaves among its 1.3 billion population, while North Korea has the highest incidence (4.37 per cent of the population) and the weakest government response to deal with it.

Incidences of slavery were found in all 167 countries in the index, with Asian countries occupying the top five places. China (3.39 million), Pakistan (2.13 million), Bangladesh (1.53 million) and Uzbekistan (1.23 million) were behind India in the list. The index said that these five countries combined accounted for almost 58 per cent of the world’s enslaved, or 26.6 million people.

The countries with the highest estimated prevalence of modern slavery by the proportion of their population are North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India, and Qatar.

The countries with the lowest estimated prevalence of modern slavery by the proportion of their population are Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Belgium, the United States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The study also tracked the government actions and responses to the modern slavery and of the 161 assessed, 124 nations had criminalised human trafficking in line with the U.N. trafficking Protocol and 96 nations had developed national action plans to coordinate government response.

It noted that while India had more people enslaved than any other country, it had made significant progress in introducing measures to tackle the problem. “It has criminalised trafficking, slavery, forced labour, child prostitution and forced marriage. The Indian government is currently tightening legislation against human trafficking, with tougher punishment for repeat offenders. It will offer victims protection and recovery support,” it said.

It said that in addition to economic growth in India, ambitious programmes of legal and social reform are being undertaken right across the board, from regulation of labour relations to systems of social insurance for the most vulnerable.

Nearly 52 per cent are vulnerable to modern slavery in India, with the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra coming up as the biggest hubs of various forms of slavery, although India has made progress in tackling the issue.

Those governments taking the least action to combat modern slavery are North Korea, Iran, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Hong Kong, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.

Those governments taking the least action to combat modern slavery are North Korea, Iran, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Hong Kong, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.

The governments that have the strongest response to modern slavery are The Netherlands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, Belgium and Norway.

Seeking strong laws to abolish slavery, Andrew Forrest, Chairman and Founder of Walk Free Foundation, said eradicating slavery makes sense, morally, politically, logically and economically, and called on the governments of the world's leading economies to provide an example to others by enacting and implementing robust anti-slavery measures.

"We call on governments of the top 10 economies of the world to enact laws, at least as strong as the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, with a budget and capability to ensure organisations are held to account for modern slavery in their supply chains, and to empower independent oversight."

Forrest said leaders of the world's major economies must bring the power of business to this issue, by requiring a focus on supply chain transparency. "I believe in the critical role of leaders in government, business and civil society. Through our responsible use of power, strength of conviction, determination and collective will, we all can lead the world to end slavery," he said.

Forrest emphasised the key role that business needs to play in eradicating slavery. "Businesses that don't actively look for forced labour within their supply chains are standing on a burning platform. Business leaders who refuse to look into the realities of their own supply chains are misguided and irresponsible," he said.

In India debt bondage, slaves are chained to an illegal financial obligation that they are forced to repay through endless labor. If unrelenting psychological pressure fails, slaveholders enforce their grip through direct violence.

The crushing mechanisms of bonded labor slavery are insidious, humiliating, and powerful. An entire family—men, women, and children—is forced to work for the person who holds the debt. If a slave gets sick and misses work, the debt grows.

One of the toughest challenges in fighting modern slavery in India is holding traffickers accountable for their crimes. But after a three-year struggle, lawyers with the ‘Free the Slaves’ front-line partner group Tatvasi Samaj Nyas (TSN) have ensured that traffickers go to jail and their victims receive restitution.

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met to set the stage for the visit of Prime Minister Modi to the US with a discussion on "US-India Relations: Balancing Progress and Managing Expectations," the panel's Republican chairman Bob Corker decided to be "brutally honest."

"How does a country like this have 12 to 14 million slaves?" Corker asked expressing what he called frustration over India's failure to address its status as the country with the world's largest enslaved population. "Do they have just zero prosecution abilities, zero law enforcement; I mean how could this happen? On that scale, it's pretty incredible," said the lawmaker from a country with a 250-year history of brutal slavery.

Stringent legislation need to be enacted for the abolition of all kinds of slavery in India irrespective of any other local traditions or rules that exist in the country from times immemorial for slavery.

(The writer is a retired senior professor ‘International Trade)