There are more than 18 million people kept as slave laborers in the world, according to UN estimates. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message on the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, December 2 said: ‘’Every day, young girls are forcibly married, sexually abused or exploited as domestic workers. Twenty-five years after the adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, boys and girls are still working in appalling conditions. Men, separated from their families, are still being locked in clandestine factories, working in situations of bonded labor with negligible wages and remote chances of ever repaying their debts.’’
Ban urged member States, businesses, foundations and other donors to support the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.
