How Asia is a hub for 'silent crime' of modern-day slavery

In the popular imagination, slavery is a thing of the past; a stain on human history which has been wiped clean. Although slavery has been banned, by law, in almost every country in the world, in truth the number of slaves is higher now than it has ever been.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that 35.8 million people around the world are trapped in slavery today. Modern-day slaves drive a growing industry worth a staggering US$150 billion a year.

The situation exists in every country, but just 10 nations have nearly three quarters of the world's slaves. Seven of those - India, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand - are in Asia, accounting for more than half of all cases.

Although they're all around us, we often fail to see people trapped in servitude because they live in the shadows - imprisoned in private homes, held captive in brothels, marooned on the high seas in fishing boats. Enslaved people also work as miners, agricultural labourers and factory workers. The term encompasses children compelled to beg and fight as soldiers, women forced into marriage and any form of bonded labour in which people are indebted, through deception or coercion, and made to work to repay loans under unlawful and exploitative conditions, sometimes over generations.

The word "slavery" covers a wide variety of human rights violations but its essence remains the same - vulnerable people are deprived of their liberty and subjected to extreme exploitation. They are always unpaid or underpaid; they are frequently overworked and underfed, and subjected to verbal, physical or sexual abuse. Slavery is more than an infringement against individuals, it's a crime that distorts and corrupts human society, and is a symptom of broader societal failure.