Global Slavery Index: 103 Thousand Slaves In Belarus

The Walk Free Foundation released a new edition of the Global Slavery Index.

In the anti-rating, Belarus occupies the 20th place among 167 countries. According to human rights activists, 103,000 people, or 1% of the country's population, are in servitude, tut.by reports.

Human rights defenders claim that modern slavery includes forced labor, human trafficking, as well as practices that are associated with or similar to slavery (for example, marriage without consent). This term includes situations of exploitation in which a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception or abuse of power.

Compared with the previous years, the number of people who remain in "modern slavery" in our country has more than doubled. In 2016, human rights activists claimed 44.6 thousand slaves in Belarus, in 2013-2014 - about 11-12 thousand.

In total, according to the organization, 40.3 million people are in slavery in the world. 71% of them are women, 29% are men. 15.4 million people were affected by forced marriages, 24.9 million were not working on their own.

The authorities of the Netherlands, the USA, Great Britain, Sweden and Belgium are most active in struggling with this phenomenon. The least is in the DPRK, Libya, Eritrea, the CAR and Iran.