{"id":125587,"date":"2019-01-14T12:01:01","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T12:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=125587"},"modified":"2019-01-11T11:50:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T11:50:25","slug":"fact-check-how-many-people-are-enslaved-in-the-world-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/01\/fact-check-how-many-people-are-enslaved-in-the-world-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Check: How Many People Are Enslaved in the World Today?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Burmese fishermen raise their hands as they are asked who among them wants to go home. Human trafficking sometimes occurs in the seafood industry. AP Photo\/Dita Alangkara<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Jan 2018 – <\/em>Modern slavery is a crime against humanity. Although some types of enslavement, like sex trafficking, are widely known, others hide in plain sight. Enslavement happens<\/a> in many industries \u2013 including restaurants, domestic work<\/a>, electronics<\/a>, construction, textiles, steel and seafood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But exactly how many people live in slavery today? Whether it\u2019s measuring modern slavery in the U.S. or across the globe, there are different, inconsistent, estimates.<\/p>\n

As someone who researches modern slavery<\/a>, I know that calculating its prevalence is like finding a needle in a haystack. A valid figure is elusive \u2013 and yet essential for better policies to free enslaved persons and help them make the difficult transition<\/a> to liberation.<\/p>\n

Defining modern slavery<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitions of modern slavery have shifted over time.<\/p>\n

In 1926, the League of Nations<\/a> defined slavery as the \u201cstatus or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.\u201d The U.N. broadened this definition<\/a> in 1956 to include forced marriage and more protections for women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

Things changed again in 2000. The U.N. introduced the term \u201ctrafficking in persons\u201d and omitted references of forced marriage from the widely adopted Palermo Protocol<\/a>. But by 2013, the U.N. General Assembly recognized forced marriage as a form of enslavement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Definitions matter because they influence how the public and policymakers interpret the issue. In a court of law, for instance, the term \u201chuman trafficking\u201d might be more persuasive to jurors than a term like \u201cslavery.\u201d<\/p>\n

For researchers, nuances also matter when it comes to estimating the number of people enslaved. Some organizations include forced marriage in their estimates of modern slavery; others do not.<\/p>\n

Still others disagree about when harsh labor conditions merit the label \u201censlavement.\u201d The International Labor Organization has said<\/a>, \u201cNot all children who are exposed to hazardous work are \u2018slaves,\u2019 and not all workers who don\u2019t receive a fair wage are forced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among published estimates of forced marriage, the numbers are staggering. Based on its calculations, UNICEF estimates<\/a> that approximately 650 million girls and women alive today were married before their 18th birthday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Demonstrators protest against slavery outside the Libyan embassy in London, December 2017. REUTERS\/Peter Nicholls<\/p><\/div>\n

To continue reading Go to Original \u2013 theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Jan 2018 – Estimates of modern slavery vary widely, whether they try to pin down numbers in the U.S., across the globe or just in certain industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}