Last year, around 50 million people around the world were forced to work or marry, the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed today.çãUnited Nations (UN), pointing to the covid-19 pandemic as the main driver of modern slavery.

The information is in the latest report published by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) - two UN agencies - with the non-governmental organization Walk Free Foundation

The document states that the UN aims to eradicate this scourge by 2030, but last year there were 10 million more people in modern slavery than the global estimates for 2016.

Some 27.6 million were forced laborers and 22 million were married against their will, according to Lusa.

Women and girls account for more than two-thirds of those forced into marriage, and nearly four out of five of them were in commercial sexual exploitation, according to the report. In total, they represent 54 percent of cases of modern slavery.

The pandemic - which caused the deterioration of working conditions and increased indebtedness of workers - strengthened the sources of modern slavery in all its forms.

In recent years, according to the report, the multiplication of crises - the pandemic, but also armed conflicts and climate change - have led to unprecedented disruptions in employment and education, the worsening of extreme poverty, the increase in forced and dangerous migrations, and the explosion of cases of gender violence.

Worldwide, almost one in every 150 people is considered a modern slave.

In a press release, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder finds it "shocking that the situation of modern slavery is not improving" and calls on governments, but also on trade unions, employers' organizations, civil society and ordinary people to combat "this fundamental violation of human rights."

A number of actions are proposed in the report, including improving and enforcing labor laws and inspections, ending state-imposed forced labor, expanding social protections, and strengthening legal protections by raising the legal age of marriage to 18 without exception.

According to the report, women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable. Thus, almost one in eight forced laborers is a child and more than half of them are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Migrant workers are more than three times as likely to be subjected to forced labor as non-migrant adults.

IOM Director General António Vitorino called for all migration to be "safe, orderly and regular."

"Reducing migrants' vulnerability to forced labor and human trafficking depends, above all, on national policies and legal frameworks that respect, protect and fulfill the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants," he stressed.

Asia and the Pacific have more than half of the world's total forced laborers (Sapo/Lusa)