Maids, brick makers, children: the faces of slavery in 2016 driving change
CHENNAI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Housemaids, brick makers, labourers, textile workers, fleeing migrants and children risking their lives in mica mines. These were the faces of modern day slavery in 2016 when the world saw a renewed resolve to combat all forms of human bondage.
An estimated 45.8 million people globally live in some form of slavery, either trafficked into forced labour, sold for sex, trapped in debt bondage or born into servitude, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index by rights group Walk Free Foundation.
Most of them are workers looking for a livelihood, better jobs, more income. And most of them are cheated, in debt bondage and trafficked to places far from home, campaigners said.
But slowly the scourge of modern slavery is driving action; fr...