Welcome To Modern Slavery

Russia ranked eighth in the world for the prevalence of modern slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index. Which says that, in Russia, there are 13 persons in a state of slavery for every 1,000. That means about 1.9 million people in Russia live in conditions of slavery (among about 50 million in the world).

According to the rating, the situations in North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tajikistan, and the UAE are worse than in Russia. And ranked just below Russia are Afghanistan and Kuwait.

"Modern slavery" is defined as any exploitation that a person cannot avoid due to threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power. This includes forced labor (sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and the worst forms of child labor), human trafficking, and slavery-like practices (forced marriages, debt bondage, and child soldiers).

DOXA and the Russian fund Bezopasny Dom report that the real number of persons subjected to such slavery in Russia likely exceeds 1.9 million. "There are more and more victims," the fund said, "because the possibilities of systematic work to prevent and solve the problem are extremely limited, and the number of vulnerable groups is growing."

Representatives of Bezopasnij Dom say that there are no statistics on certain forms of exploitation in the country, but most cases in the world account for sex trafficking and forced labor.

One of Russia's most recently revealed cases of forced labor happened in Moscow, in Golyanovo. The victims were citizens of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, mostly women, who for several years were forced to live in a grocery store and work for free. They were subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation, and ill-treatment. Their plight inspired Michael Borodin’s film "Produkty 24."