NEW DELHI: In its latest report, the Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day in 2016 there were nearly 8 million people living in “modern slavery” in India — a claim strongly contested by the government on the grounds that its parameters were poorly defined and too wide-ranging.
The report said that in terms of prevalence, there were 6.1 victims for every thousand people. Among 167 countries,, India ranked 53 with North Korea at the top of the list with 104.6 per 1,000 and Japan registering lowest prevalence rate of 0.3 per 1,000.
However, in absolute numbers India topped the list on prevalence.
China found itself at 111 place with a prevalence rate of 2.8 per 1,000. Defining “modern slavery”, the Walk Free Foundation, which brought out the report said, “In the context of this report, modern slavery covers a set of specific legal concepts including forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, slavery and slavery-like practices, and human trafficking”.
Reacting to the report’s conclusions, officials in the government who are associated with the framing of the anti-trafficking bill currently in the Lok Sabha questioned the definition adopted for the research and also the sample size for interviews and questions posed to those surveyed.
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