Slavery continues to evolve, shifting into new forms that remain hidden across global industries. Though a century has passed since the Slavery Convention, contemporary exploitation still traps people through forced labor, debt bondage, sexual exploitation, and forced marriage. Modern slavery is adapting to technology, conflict, and economic pressure faster than the systems designed to stop it.
Ecaterina Schilling, Chair of the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, warns that new forms of slavery continue to emerge, including child exploitation online. The widespread nature of these abuses makes clear that the convention’s role remains critical as ever.
Who profits and who loses
Traffickers manipulate hope, fear, and vulnerability. They deceive people seeking a better life for themselves and their families, using tactics like impossible debts, threats, violence, and physical and psychological control. These abuses cut across almost every global industry. Schilling told the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) in an interview:
Just to mention a few: agriculture, from cacao and coffee to fruits and vegetables, and fishing and seafood. Its has affected the construction and manufacturing industries—especially where migrant workers have little protection—but also mining, including of cobalt, gold and other minerals essential to the global economy.
Technology now plays a significant role in recruitment, as traffickers leverage online platforms to lure, mislead, and manipulate victims. Children face unprecedented risks in cyberspace, where grooming, coercion, and exploitation are expanding at alarming rates. Even when victims appear free, many live under constant fear, manipulation, and dependence.
The impact runs deep and can last for years, leading to psychological trauma like shame, chronic anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These effects extend beyond survivors themselves and often affect their families as well.
“supply chains cannot be built on hidden suffering”
Slavery thrives where vulnerability meets profit. Low wages, discrimination, lack of legal status, corruption, weak labor protections, conflict, and generations-old social norms all create the conditions exploiters rely on. In some communities, descent-based slavery persists, where a child can be “born into the status of being ‘owned’ by a so-called ‘master’.”
Businesses play a defining role. Exploitation remains embedded in the production of food, electronics, mining, manufacturing, and construction. Schilling notes that “supply chains cannot be built on hidden suffering,” yet many still are. Even everyday items, like mobile phones contain materials sourced from mines linked to slavery.
Governments have introduced laws and awareness campaigns, but enforcement remains far behind the scale of abuse. Legal systems are often underfunded or inaccessible, leaving survivors without meaningful support. Schilling warns:
And with the number of people affected by slavery continuing to rise, the Sustainable Development Goal of ending all forms of slavery by 2030 is increasingly slipping out of reach and the specific target of ending child labor by 2025 was sadly unattained.
But beyond economic gain, factors such as power, control, and the wish to reinforce social hierarchies also play a role. These factors include discrimination, racism, caste systems, gender inequality, and xenophobia can also determine vulnerability.
You can help eradicate modern slavery
Schilling ends by stating we all have an obligation and responsibility to contribute to ending slavery. Civil society organizations must continue pushing governments to strengthen protections, identify victims, and increase accountability. Survivor-centered support, business transparency, and deeper international cooperation also remain essential. Change is possible, but only if governments, businesses, consumers, and communities confront slavery together. Schilling said:
We need to change public attitudes. Slavery persists not only because some people choose to exploit the vulnerable, but also because others unknowingly consume goods and services produced through exploitation.
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