What are governments doing to stop slavery?

Slavery is illegal in every country in the world yet still runs rampant. In 2018, although more than 170 countries had made public commitments to eradicating it, just 122 had criminalised human trafficking in line with the UN Trafficking Protocol, and only 38 countries had criminalised forced marriage, according to the Global Slavery index. The US, Scandinavia and Europe are rated as the top 10 governments responding to slavery, yet convictions are low – in fact, convictions in Europe fell 25% in 2016 from 2011 levels, despite an increase in the number of victims.

Globally, the number of identified victims of modern slavery increased by 40% from 2012 to 2016, to 24,000, which is a tiny fraction of the estimated victims. Experts believe the low conviction rates reflect a failure to recognise victims as well as the difficulties authorities have in building cases under new trafficking and modern slavery laws.