The 2018 Global Slavery Index measures the extent of country wise modern slavery, and the steps taken by respective governments to respond to the issue towards ending it.
Global Slavery Index 2018
In global Slavery Index 2018, India stands at 53 in terms of prevalence among 167 countries whereas North Korea has the highest prevalence of modern slavery with the ratio of one in 10 people.
The report on Global Slavery Index 2018 reveals that, in 2016 8 million people were living in modern slavery in India that is around 6.1 victims for every thousand.
According to the report's findings 10 countries accounting for 60 percent, with the largest number of people in modern slavery are India, China, Pakistan, North Korea, Nigeria, Iran, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russia and the Philippines.
The Global Estimates of Modern Slavery reveals that in 2017 40.3 million individuals were living in modern slavery being exploited for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced marriage, domestic servitude, and forced criminality.
Another finding of the report indicates that there are more female(71 percent) than male victims across all forms of modern slavery.
The report also says that the prevalence of modern slavery in high-GDP countries like United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and several other European nations is higher than previously understood.
The report also highlights that two major external drivers behind modern slavery are highly repressive regimes and conflict situations. Highly repressive regimes puts the populations to work to prop up the government while conflict situations breaks down the rule of law, social structures, and existing systems of protection.
Government's effort
Globally, governments are taking more action to strengthen legislation, policy, and programmatic responses to modern slavery to improve the established coordination and accountability mechanisms.
Moreover, high-GDP countries such as Qatar, Singapore, Kuwait, Brunei and Hong Kong are doing very little to respond despite their wealth and resources, while low-GDP countries such as Georgia, Moldova, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Mozambique are responding strongly.
India's stand
Ministry of Women and Child Development(GoI) questioned the definition of modern slavery used in the research and termed the index flawed in its interpretations. Indian government also said that the context of socio-economic parameters are diverse and very nuanced in India and hence the Index does not reflect the true picture.
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