On any given day, an estimated 40.3 million people around the world are exploited for someone’s benefit or commercial gain - forced by coercion or intimidation to work against their will, putting their lives at risk, and decimating their well-being and dignity. The modern slavery industry is highly lucrative, generating at least an estimated $150 billion in illegal profits every year, making forced labor the second largest international crime in the world.

Public awareness and outrage at incidents of modern slavery are growing every day. There is a groundswell of support from everyday people joining global organized movements to put an end to all forms of modern slavery. Governments and companies are listening. In recent years, public condemnation and action against cases of modern slavery have resulted in legislative reform, changed business policies and practices, and even altered the course of diplomatic relations. 

However, the work is far from over. The scope of the issue is so vast, it will take years of dedicated and united efforts to surmount.

To help donors and supporters get started, anti-slavery NGO Freedom United has created a first-of-its kind interactive modern slavery map. This map highlights today’s most pressing cases of modern slavery and provides users with ways to take action to end them.

Screenshot from map.freedomunited.org

Freedom United is the world’s largest community dedicated to ending human trafficking and modern slavery. We educate and raise awareness on modern slavery with information, events and tools, such as this map, so that supporters can become informed stakeholders in the movement for change. 

The Freedom United community includes modern slavery survivors because we believe the anti-slavery movement should be survivor-led and informed. It also includes numerous partnerships with other organizations because collaboration is one of Freedom United’s core values. 

Another key value is accuracy. The map is constantly updated so that information is always current and provides a holistic, real-time picture of the structural issues that contribute to and perpetuate modern slavery. We are very careful about the kind of information we share and forgo sensationalism for relevant facts. 

As the map shows, modern slavery takes many forms. The most common are bonded labor, forced labor, child slavery, domestic slavery, forced marriage and human trafficking. Modern slavery also touches all countries. The map shows just how many estimated people live in modern slavery in all countries around the world. 

The products of modern slavery are also varied and all around us – from the clothes we wear containing cotton produced with forced labor in the Uyghur Region, to the food we eat, containing palm oil made using forced labor in Malaysia, to the electronics we use. The map shows how modern slavery looks in the U.S. with news stories covering forced marriage, big chocolate companies failing to take action to end child labor in cocoa production, to prison slavery. As well as being able to choose specific countries to orient their research, users may also choose to focus on specific conflict products for an overview of where reform is needed by searching by industry. 

Modern slavery hotspots that Freedom United targets through community powered campaigns are easy to locate. We can confidently encourage users to get involved because these campaigns are chosen only after thorough research, consultation with partners, supporters and survivors and a plausible theory of change can be ascertained. 

Real, sustainable change is only possible through a bottom up mass movement. Join Freedom United to support global efforts to end modern slavery.