Slavery: North Korea Now The Slavery Capital Of The World, Says Report


North Korea has reportedly overtaken the West African country of Mauritania as the slavery capital of the world. The Walk Free Foundation says the percentage of slaves living in Mauritania is currently at one percent, a three percent drop from since the last slavery index was released in 2014. While Mauritania has seen a great reduction in the percentage of its population living in modern-day slavery, measuring far behind North Korea, it is still in the top ten nations in the world for slavery per capita.

Mauritania now comes in at No. 7 when it comes to current slavery in the world.

According to a CNN report, North Korea’s slavery levels makes it the No. 1 nation in the world for slavery. Roughly one in five people (or 20 percent) who live in the reclusive nation are believed to be living lives of slavery.

“Slavery is not a thing of the past, and we must stop thinking that it is. The very nature of modern slavery means it is clandestine and hidden from view, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t everywhere. Every country in the world is affected.”

According to the report, almost 46 million people the world over live in slavery. The slavery index is compiled using random surveys and complex statistical models. That number has risen sharply since the last slavery report in 2014 — it’s up a whopping 28 percent.

Fiona David, executive director of global research for the Walk Free Foundation, says that people shouldn’t focus too much on the numbers, adding that they may not be accurate representations of changes in slavery the world over.

Rather, David says that the slavery index is more accurate now than it has been in the past as the Walk Free Foundation now has a better ability to estimate the prevalence of slavery across the globe. According to David, because slavery estimates are more accurate than they were in the past, the actual changes in slavery statistics may not be as extreme as they appear.

“It’s too early for us to say whether or not there’s been an absolute increase.”

David says that new computer models are much better at estimating the instances of slavery in countries where surveys are impossible, and the process of “risk assessment” has dramatically improved. So while it’s difficult for the organization to determine variances in slavery numbers from the last report to the current one, the group does believe it has a more accurate, more comprehensive understanding of the slavery going on in the world than it has in the past.

“What we can categorically say is we have a better picture (of the prevalence of slavery worldwide) than we’ve ever had before.”

The organization has a relatively broad (but accurate) definition of the word “slavery.”

“The Walk Free Foundation defines slavery as ‘situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception.’ “

The most recent slavery report was the first conducted in which the group had been able to directly contact people in Mauritania. The current estimation that one percent of the country is living in slavery takes into consideration both forced marriage and forced employment.

In 2012, global experts estimated that 10-20 percent of the population of the African nation was living in slavery.

The government Mauritania denies that slavery exists in the country, and it’s extremely difficult to get wholly accurate information. However, societal changes to the practice of slavery in the nation have occurred in recent years. In 2007, the practice was technically criminalized, and since then special courts have been set up to deal with slavery-related legal issues.

In addition to the new information gleaned regarding slavery in Mauritania, the slavery report discovered state-sanctioned forced labor is very widespread in North Korea. Compilers of the slavery report believe that roughly 20 percent of the population is subjected to the practice as workers on overseas contracts and/or as political prisoners, among other things.

The nation with the world’s second-highest slavery rate per capita is Uzbekistan. That nation’s government forces citizens to work in the cotton harvest annually.

India has a widespread slavery problem, too. As of 2016, it is estimated that over 18 million people are being forced into some form of slavery in the country. Slavery in India is prevalent in the farming, fishing, domestic servitude, construction, and sex industries, but still falls well behind the per capita percentage of slavery in North Korea.

[Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

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