http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth…ery/default.stm
North America
Human trafficking routes run throughout the region, often leading into the US from Mexico, Canada, or overseas. Many of the tens of thousands of people who are trafficked into the US and Canada are forced into prostitution or domestic work, others become forced labourers on farms or factories. Most come from Asia and Latin America, but flows from Central and Eastern Europe are reported to be on the rise.
Latin America and Caribbean
Forced labour is most likely to affect rural or indigenous populations in remote areas of Latin America. Problems of debt bondage and abusive conditions have been documented in remote parts of the Amazon and the Andean region. The region is a place of origin, transit and destination for persons trafficked for sexual exploitation and labour. In the Caribbean, there are allegations of forced labour affecting Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic and of children in Haiti being sold into domestic slavery.
Africa
In Africa, victims of forced labour often come from distinct ethnic or religious groups. In certain countries, systems of chattel slavery are in place and hundreds of thousands of people are born into slavery. Forced labour is sometimes imposed by local authorities or by militias who abduct villagers and force them to fight or work for them. Trafficking routes run throughout Africa. The International Labour Organization says there is evidence to suggest that children represent a higher proportion of forced labourers in Africa than in other parts of the world.
Europe
Trafficking appears to be the main route into forced labour in Europe. While much of the attention has been focused on victims of sexual exploitation, there is growing evidence that many are being trafficked for forced labour in agriculture, domestic service, construction work and sweatshops. Victims of forced labour in Europe come mainly from Asia, former Soviet republics, Eastern Europe and Africa.
Middle East
Many women from Africa and Asia who work as domestic servants in the Middle East find themselves coerced into situations of debt bondage or involuntary servitude. Young boys from South Asia and East Africa are trafficked into some Gulf States to work as camel jockeys.
South Asia
Millions of men, women and children are trapped in bonded labour across the region. They are often made to work as a means of repayment for a loan, which can trap whole families over many generations. In some cases bondage is the result of longstanding social or ethnic discrimination. Bonded labour in South Asia is found in agriculture, domestic work, the sex trade, brick kilns, glass industries, tanneries, and other manufacturing industries.
Asia Pacific
In parts of Asia, forced labour is exacted by the state or the military for multiple purposes. In Burma, villagers are sometimes forced to enlist in the army or work for it. Others are forced to work on public construction projects. In China, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are forced to work under the “re-education through labour system”. Asia is also crossed by human trafficking routes, particularly used for sexual exploitation.
Child Labour
About 211 million children aged from five to 14 are at work around the world, according to Unicef, despite being too young to do so under international standards. Most of them are not considered to be victims of forced labour. The ILO estimates that between five and six million children are forced labourers (40-50% of the total). Some of them are born into bondage, others are sold by their parents or abducted - they work in agriculture, industry, domestic work and the sex trade.
Slavery: Mauritania’s best kept secret:
I was tied up all night and all day. They only untied me so I could do my chores. In the end I could barely move my limbs."
She never earnt a single penny.
“All those years,” she told me, “and I don’t even own a goat”.
Mohamed could not tell me his surname or his age.
As a slave he didn’t own the right to either.
But in a candlelit shack in the sandy outskirts of the capital, Nouakchott, he told me the story of his life.
“I don’t know how I became a slave,” he told me.
“I was just born one. My family were slaves. We did all the hard work for our master and all we received in return was beatings.”
“My master is the father of my first child, my master’s son is the father of my second child and my baby girl’s father was my master’s nephew”.