The International Labor Organization (ILO) said that at the end of last year, about 50 million people around the world lived in "modern slavery", the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.

The UN's labor agency, along with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and human rights group Walk Free, said in a report released today that 28 million people were living in conditions of forced labor or forced marriage by the end of 2021. Their number is was 25 percent more than the data in the previous report five years ago.

The ILO and its partners have highlighted worrying trends such as "commercial sexual exploitation", affecting almost a quarter of people subjected to forced labour, with the poor, women and children the worst affected.

According to the report, child and forced marriages have increased in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Congo, Egypt, India, Uganda and Yemen.

However, the paper points out that wealthier countries are "not immune" to the problem, with almost a quarter of forced marriages occurring in high- or upper-middle-income countries.

UN: Modern forms of slavery are widespread around the world

UN

modern slavery