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The Global Slavery Index, now with updated methodology, continues to point to the Indo-Pacific as the locus of ongoing shame
The 2016 index again found Asia, which provides low-skilled labour in global supply chains producing clothing, food and technology, accounted for two-thirds of the people in slavery.
About 58 percent of people living in slavery are in five countries - India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.
However the countries with the highest proportion of their population enslaved were North Korea, Uzbekistan, and Cambodia.
The governments taking the least action to tackle slavery were listed as North Korea, Iran, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, and Hong Kong.
Human trafficking in Asia has been in the global spotlight in recent years, since the Associated Press ran a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of stories exposing rampant corruption and slavery in Thailand's billion-dollar fishing industry. The increased scrutiny has forced the Thai government to implement reforms, and businesses to review their supply chains for abuse. Britain and the United States have tightened laws to punish those complicit in human trafficking.
This progress is long overdue in an era of globalisation where the rising affluence of an expanding middle class has driven mass production of cheap goods and services made possible by low-cost or forced labour.
Apart from the fact that this is morally wrong, research has shown that forced labour has broader social and economic costs in terms of hampering development and perpetuating poverty. There is also a strong link between slavery and environmental degradation. In certain industries that face high environmental risks such as agriculture, fishing, logging and mining, the use of forced labour is often documented. The exploitation of both people and the environment is even more likely when these activities take place in areas where monitoring and legal enforcement are weak.
This is why it is important that we look with a critical eye at these supply chains and at loopholes in legal systems so as to stamp out slavery in all its forms.
The experts gave a long wish list of areas they’d like journalists to focus more on, not least the "push and pull factors and systemic issues that contribute to slavery" along with corruption, consumer and corporate responsibility for slavery, anti-trafficking laws and regulations and care for survivors.
Asked what they'd like journalists to focus less on, the answer was an overwhelming chorus: sex slavery.
Those trafficked into sexual exploitation account for just one-fifth of slavery victims worldwide, according to the International Labour Organization. Most forced labourers are in industries such as agriculture, fishing, mining, construction or domestic work.
"Sex sells, but concentrate on economics, debt bondage and sweat shops and enforcement of labour standards," said one U.S.-based expert.
The Global Slavery Index 2016, the previous edition of which was published in 2014, cannot be viewed in a comparative lens despite having larger counts of victims than in previous indices due to a change in methodology. Authors said the study used “enhanced data collection and research methodology.”
The research was a product of over 42,000 interviews in 53 languages across 25 countries, with the results being “extrapolated to countries with an equivalent risk profile.”
Some 124 countries have criminalised human trafficking in line with the UN Trafficking
Protocol and 96 have developed national action plans to coordinate the government response.
However, Australian billionaire mining magnate and philantropist Andrew Forrest, who set up the Walk Free Foundation, said more robust measures were needed.
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