Contemporary slavery extensive globally, including China, India, says UN | World News,The Indian Express
The UN report rounded up the forced labour for China’s Uyghur minority, bonded labour for the lowest caste Dalits in South Asia, and domestic servitude in Gulf countries, and sexual slavery in African nations.
A UN investigator says contemporary forms of slavery are widely practiced around the world, including forced labour for China’s Uyghur minority, bonded labour for the lowest caste Dalits in South Asia, and domestic servitude in Gulf countries, Brazil and Colombia.
Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokat adds that traditional enslavement, especially of minorities, is found in Mauritania, Mali and Niger in Africa’s Sahel region. He said in a report to the UN General Assembly circulated Wednesday that child labour — another contemporary form of slavery — exists in all regions of the world, including its worst forms.
“In Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, the Americas, and Europe, between 4 and 6 per cent of children are said to be in child labour, and the percentage is much higher in Africa (21.6%), with the highest rate in sub-Saharan Africa (23.9%),” he said.
His conclusion about Uyghurs in China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang follows a US ban imposed last December on imports from the region unless businesses can prove items are made without forced labour. There have been many claims China engages in systemic and widespread abuse of ethnic and religious minorities in its western region.
Obokata’s findings drew sharp criticism from China’s Foreign Ministry. In the report, Obokata said that based on an independent assessment of available information from many sources, including victims and government accounts, he “regards it as reasonable to conclude that forced labour among Uyghur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing has been occurring in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.”
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