How prevalent is slavery around the world today?

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This map shows us how prevalent modern slavery is around the world in 2023. Although slavery has been abolished for a long time in almost all countries around the world, it still exists in some places.

The estimated rate of modern slavery is the lowest in most of the developed world (in particular western and northern Europe) and southern Africa. The highest rates can be found in Central Asia, the Middle East and some African countries.

There are four countries that have a far higher rate of modern slavery than any other country. North Korea, with a rate of 104.60, has the highest rate of modern slavery worldwide, which probably comes as no surprise. It is closely followed by Eritrea (90.28), largely caused by the country’s indefinite military conscription. Mauritania (32.02) and Saudi Arabia (21.26) come in third and fourth place respectively.

The data for this map comes from the 2023 Global Slavery Index, compiled by Walk Free. Walk Free describes modern slavery as covering “… a set of specific legal concepts including forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, slavery and slavery-like practices, and human trafficking. Although modern slavery is not defined in law, it is used as an umbrella term that focuses attention on commonalities across these legal concepts. Essentially, it refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.”