Yeah, looks like most of the West is tied for #52.

Due to all of them having an estimated 0.018% in slavery, which seems kind of arbitrary so they should really mark that as some sort of minimal slavery standard rather than make it look like an estimate actually based on the country.

Site seems pretty good overall but is missing a hard facts and figures section to go alongside the nice graphical interface. They appear to offer a pdf report but they wanted me to request access to get it.

> Due to all of them having an estimated 0.018% in slavery

So they didn't count prisoner labour?

If it's forced labour, it should count. If it's voluntary (to allow inmates to make some money and have something to do), then it shouldn't.

Prison itself isn't voluntary, so it's a biased choice.

True, but whether inmates are forced to provide cheap labor still makes a lot of difference. After the abolition of slavery in the US, prison labor has been used as a replacement in areas that used to rely on slave labor.

> whether inmates are forced to provide cheap labor still makes a lot of difference

What is 'force' though? "Do this or I hit you with a stick"? "Do this and you go back to your cage"? "Do this or there will be nothing positive in your life"?

The prison gets cheap labour. Slavery is just a border on a map of human exploitation, I think some distinctions need far more qualification to be relevant.

It seems that a higher ranking is worse.

> The Index presents a ranking of 167 countries based on the proportion of the population that is estimated to be in modern slavery. [0]

North Korea, with 4.37% in slavery, is ranked 1.

India, with 1.4% in slavery, is ranked 4.

Philippines, with 0.4% in slavery, is ranked 33.

China, with 0.25% in slavery, is ranked 40.

USA, with .02% in slavery, is ranked 52.

[0] https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/

EDIT: number -> ranking

How is a higher number worse if there is less slavery in countries with a higher number?

I should have phrased it as a higher ranking rather than a higher number. I assumed 'higher' was clear in the terms of ranks, rather than a larger number.

GP's claim makes it seem like they interpreted as I did.

> ...countries like North Korea (rank #1) are closer to 0...

NK is not close to 0 in relative or absolute slave counts, and I don't see the utility in pointing out that 1 is closer to 0 than 52.

Yes, I replied before you edited your post, I get your meaning now. Thanks for clarifying.

What surprises me is that Netherland, while praised for doing the most to fight slavery, is, at #50, ranked lower than the US, which I believe has forced prison labour.

Maybe it has to do with prostitution being legal here. You'd expect licensed and regulated prostitution to reduce slavery in prostitution, but apparently it's still a serious problem. Still, 17,500 people in slavery? That's a lot. I'd like to know where they got that figure.

I meant 'higher' as in 'larger', sorry.