This is unbelievable in this supposedly modern day and age. There are 30 million slaves in the world. From the Reuters story:
Some 30 million people are enslaved worldwide, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labor, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude, a global index on modern slavery showed on Thursday. Almost half are in India, where slavery ranges from bonded labor in quarries and kilns to commercial sex exploitation, although the scourge exists in all 162 countries surveyed by Walk Free, an Australian-based rights group.
Its estimate of 29.8 million slaves worldwide is higher than other attempts to quantify modern slavery. The International Labour Organisation estimates that almost 21 million people are victims of forced labour.
I once asked a U.S. diplomat, whose portfolio included slavery and human trafficking, what was the worst thing he saw in his work. His answer: “Children locked in hanging bamboo cages in India.” Awful.
Slavery is evil. It is a profound violation of human exceptionalism. The status quo is unacceptable.