UNITED NATIONS, May 11: International Labour Organization said on Wednesday that more than 12 million people are working in coercive, slavery-like conditions, but many countries at present do not provide in their legislation for the specific offence of forced labour and called for a new global alliance to abolish the system.

“Forced labour represents the underside of globalization and denies people their basic rights and dignity,” International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General Juan Somavia says. “To achieve a fair globalization and decent work for all, it is imperative to eradicate forced labour.

“There is a critical need for devising effective strategies against forced labour today,” he adds. “This requires a blend of law enforcement and ways of tackling the structural roots of forced labour, whether outmoded agrarian systems, or poorly functioning labour markets.”

To move the world towards this goal, the ILO has published a new report, called “A Global Alliance against Forced Labour,” with the most comprehensive analysis of the facts and causes of all aspects of forced labour and slavery-like work ever, as well as ways of tackling the multi-faceted problem.

It says 9.8 million of the at least 12.3 million people being exploited are working in the private sector, including a minimum of 2.4 million victims of human trafficking. The comments of ILO supervisory bodies make clear that coercive sexual exploitation also constitutes forced labour, it adds.

Some 9.5 million forced labourers are in Asia, which is the region with the highest number; 1.3 million in Latin America and the Caribbean; 660,000 in sub-Saharan Africa; 260,000 in the Middle East and North Africa; 360,000 in industrialized countries; and 210,000 in transition countries, it estimates.

Children younger than 18 years comprise 40 to 50 per cent of all forced labour victims, the ILO says.

In such sectors as agriculture, construction, brick-making and sweatshop manufacturing, the sexes are fairly evenly represented, the report says, adding that each trafficked worker generates an average annual profit of some $13,000. “However, forced commercial sexual exploitation entraps almost entirely women and girls.”

In Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, trafficked workers are just about 20 per cent of forced labour, while in the industrialized, transition countries, as well as the Middle East and North Africa, trafficked persons form more that 75 per cent of forced labour.

Another 2.5 million persons worldwide are forced to work by the state or by rebel military groups, the report says.