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Talibé children begging in the streets of Korogho, Ivory Coast. Talibé
children, almost exclusively boys, live and study in Koranic schools across
west Africa. In return for their studies, many are forced to beg on the
streets. Anti-Slavery International estimates there are more than 50,000 Talibé
children forced into begging gangs. Many of the boys have been sent or
trafficked from nearby countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso, and live in
squalid conditions, poorly nourished and subject to physical and emotional
abuse if they fail to meet their ‘quota’ from begging
Photograph: Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images
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Child slavery makes up more than one quarter of all forced labour.
According to official ILO figures, there are at least 5.5 million children
living as slaves, although anti-slavery groups claim the real number is almost
certainly higher. Local NGOs say there are at least 35,000 children in forced
labour conditions in Mumbai's leather industry, brick-making kilns and tea
shops alone. In this picture, a group of boys is found in an embroidery
workshop in Mumbai during a police raid. Although India has the highest
estimated slave population in the world, prosecutions for slavery and
trafficking offences are rare
Photograph: Sherwin Crasto/Reuters
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Modern slavery is intricately linked with globalised
labour markets and migration flows across countries and continents. Poverty,
lack of opportunity, violence and conflict uproot millions of people every
year, forcing them to look for work outside their own community or country. The
line between exploitation and slavery is often hard to distinguish, with people
finding themselves trapped in forced labour conditions, having their documents
taken by 'employers' and working off debts incurred on their journey. Here,
illegal immigrants from Guinea Bissau work in a greenhouse in Andalucia, Spain
Photograph: Christopher Pillitz/Alamy
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The International Labour Organisation (ILO) conservatively estimates that
around 21 million people are trapped in in some form of slavery. Slave labour
props up both legal and illegal industry and commerce throughout the world. In
Brazil, illegal charcoal camps in the Amazon use slave labour to harvest
rainforest wood to power smelters used to make steel for industries such as car
manufacturing
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
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