Geneva - (AFP) - The United Nations announced in a report published Monday that "modern slavery" has expanded around the world in recent years, driven in particular by the epidemic, and about 50 million people were forced during the past year to forced labor or forced marriage.

The United Nations hopes to eradicate this scourge by the year 2030, but ten million additional people found themselves last year in a state of modern slavery compared to global estimates for the year 2016, according to the latest report published by the International Labor Organization and the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations in cooperation with The Walk Free Foundation is a non-governmental organization.

Of the 50 million people living in modern slavery, about 27.6 million are subject to forced labor, while 22 million were married against their will.

The report indicated that women and girls represent more than two-thirds of people who are forced into marriage, and about four out of five people who are subject to commercial sexual exploitation.

In total, they account for 54 percent of modern slavery cases.

And the pandemic - which caused a deterioration in working conditions and an increase in the indebtedness of workers - reinforced the sources of modern slavery in all its forms.

The report shows that the multiplication of crises in recent years - the pandemic, armed conflicts and climate change - has caused unprecedented disruptions in employment and education, exacerbated extreme poverty, multiplied forced and dangerous migration, and an explosion of cases of gender-based violence. All of which increase the risks of modern slavery.

Worldwide, one in every 150 people is considered to be in modern slavery.

This data, which is based on nationally representative household studies, also indicates that instances of modern slavery are by no means fleeting, but rather persist for years.

"It is shocking that the situation of modern slavery is not improving," ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said in a statement, calling on governments, trade unions, employers' organizations, civil society and ordinary people to fight this "fundamental violation of human rights."

The report proposes a number of measures, most notably improving and enforcing labor laws and inspections, ending forced labor imposed by the state, expanding social protection and strengthening legal protection, including by raising the legal age of marriage to 18 years without exception.

Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable, as one in eight forced laborers is a child, and more than half are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Migrant workers are three times more likely to be subject to forced labor than non-migrant adult workers.

The Director-General of the International Organization for Migration, Antonio Vitorino, appealed for all migrations to be "safe, orderly and regular".

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

Modern slavery exists in almost every country in the world. More than half (52 percent) of all cases of forced labor and a quarter of all cases of forced marriage are in high-income or high-income countries.

Forced marriage has increased in recent years by 6.6 million cases since the 2016 global estimate.

The report revealed that the number of people working in forced labor increased by 2.7 million between 2016 and 2021, an increase attributed to forced labor in the private economy, whether through commercial sexual exploitation or in other sectors.

The Asia Pacific region is home to more than half of all forced laborers in the world. In this context, the report highlights in particular that various UN bodies have raised concerns about forced labor in China, including in Xinjiang.

In this regard, the report emphasized that on August 12, China deposited the ratification documents for the two basic ILO conventions on forced labor, which "creates new impetus for cooperation with the government and social partners in order to monitor these issues (and) combat forced labour."