North Korea and Eritrea Hold the Most People in ‘Slavery’

North Korea and Eritrea are the countries with the highest rate of people in slavery in the world, according to an international study published on Thursday that examines the roles of conflict and government repression in modern slavery.

According to the Global Slavery Index, a report by the human rights organization Walk Free, alongside North Korea and Eritrea, the Central African country of Burundi also has a high rate of slavery.

“In each of these countries, the state forces people into unpaid labor,” said Fiona David, a researcher at the Minderoo Foundation who collected the data.

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According to the report, “the Eritrean government is a repressive regime that abuses the military conscription system to force people into labor for decades.”

The government of Burundi also forces citizens to work, and the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch claims it is involved in killings and disappearances of its population.

Among the countries with equally high rates of modern slavery are the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Pakistan.

“All of these countries are marked by conflict, a lack of rule of law, and physical security,” the report states.

According to it, Africa has the highest rate of slavery, with over 9 million people living in some form of captivity, or one in every eight out of 1,000 people.

Researchers warned that consumers in more developed countries are potentially buying products made by people living in slavery, such as computers, mobile phones, and clothing.

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“Global slavery is integrated into our global economy,” said Grace Forrest, co-founder of Walk Free.

According to estimates by Walk Free and the International Labour Organization, since 2016, more than 40 million people have been living in slavery.

Of this, India alone has over 18 million slaves in a population of 1.3 billion people. In China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan, about 58 percent of the total number of people living in slavery worldwide were found. However, North Korea had the highest percentage of its population in a slaveholding relationship, which remains the case today.

“In North Korea, one in ten people lives in some form of modern slavery, while the majority are forced to work by the government,” the 2018 report states.

Researchers interviewed 50 North Korean refugees living in South Korea who reported that conditions for forced unpaid labor in agriculture, construction, and road building are inhumane. It is believed that slavery is likely much more widespread than the report indicates. Data from Arab countries is missing, as well as information on organ trafficking and the recruitment of children for armed conflicts.