What forms does modern-day slavery take?
Unlike historic slavery, involving countries including the UK, modern slavery does not purely mean people being captured in their own country and sent in chains to work as forced labourers elsewhere. The UN’s office of the high commissioner for human rights defines the practice as including bonded servitude, sexual trafficking, child labour and the use of children as combatants in warfare. There is so-called “slavery by descent” in which people are either born into a slave class or come from a social grouping traditionally used as slave labour. Early forced marriage, in which female children are treated as chattels, is classed as a form of slavery. The various practices of slavery are banned internationally under the 1948 universal declaration of human rights as well as the 1956 UN supplementary convention on the abolition of slavery, the slave trade and institutions and practices similar to slavery.
