Child slave labor still a global issue

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters): Millions of women and children are being forced or tricked into slavery every year even as the world enters the 21st century, experts said on Tuesday.

"Children in slavery around the world are in their millions. Slavery is a totally global issue," Beth Herzfeld, spokeswoman for the British-based charity Anti-Slavery International told Reuters. "There is no country that does not have child slavery."

As the hunt for a ship allegedly carrying hundreds of child slaves off West Africa ended with the discovery that the MV Etireno was instead carrying adult economic refugees headed for Gabon, attention turned to the global traffic in human flesh.

"It really is still a huge problem. Slavery is illegal, but it is still incredibly prevalent," said Rachel Yates, child labor advisor of the Save the Children organization.

"The trouble is there are no accurate figures," she said, noting the lack of an agreed definition of slavery.

The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen in slave labor around the world -- predominantly in Asia and Africa.

In some cases the children are forced into labor to pay off family debts, in others they are kidnapped and in others again the parents hand them over to the traffickers on the promise of a better life for them and an income for the family.

The United Nations child welfare organization UNICEF estimates that tens of thousands of women and young girls are sold into the sex trade in India and Thailand each year or traded as child brides.

"It is estimated that in the last 30 years, trafficking in women and children in Asia for sexual exploitation alone has victimized over 30 million people," the organization said.

Herzfeld said international figures put the chief source of slave labor as those working under bond to pay off the debts of their parents or even inherited debts.

"It is estimated there are 20 million people in bonded labor," she said. "South Asia has the most bonded labor."

"These children are often not paid, have no rights and are forced to work all day, every day," she added. "They can't take time off and can't afford to be sick. Every day they don't work adds to their debt."

In West Africa there is a regular trade in human cargoes from the poorer to the richer countries -- particularly from the tiny and impoverished Benin to oil-rich Gabon and Nigeria.

"In West Africa girls frequently are forced into domestic work or on market stalls, while boys are sent to the cocoa plantations," Herzfeld said.

"In Africa particularly the traffickers are largely women and in some cases they are relatives," she added. "In some cases it is organized crime, but in West Africa they are often small rings abusing traditional systems."

A recent United States study estimated the number of women and children being shipped across national borders globally at up to two million a year.

But in many cases the slaves do not leave the country. Often they are forced into domestic service -- sometimes for a wealthy relative and even in the same village.

Yates said the problem in quantifying and ending the slave trade was aggravated by a lack of resources, the fact that the trade was highly secretive and shrouded in lies and deception and that there was no globally accepted definition of slavery.

"It is not only very widescale, but it is also incredibly hidden most of the time," she said.

For the slaves, the suffering does not end when they reach their mid-teens and are deemed to have outlasted their usefulness.

"If they survive, they are often simply cast out when they get too old," Herzfeld said.