Around 10 million people are currently behind bars somewhere in the world. Some have yet to face trial, a few have been wrongly convicted, but most are prisoners for a crime they have committed. Meanwhile, four times as many people are being held against their will because of a crime committed against them—they are part of the global population of slavery estimated to be more than 40 million.
That number is higher than the entire population of Canada. Many of these victims are literally kept under lock and key, while others are effectively imprisoned by coercion, manipulation and extortion.
Slavery may long have been officially outlawed, but difficult though it may be to believe, numerically there are more slaves today than at any time in history.
