New Report: There Are Staggering Numbers of Enslaved People in Today's World

This new report on where slaves live in today's world breaks me up. I feel helpless. I wish I could pray but praying does no good. If there was a god I wouldn't need to pray for these staggering numbers of enslaved human beings anyway. Wow. I think there's human progress, I do. But then there's this.

A new report estimates 45.8 million people live in contemporary slavery in 167 countries. Nearly 60 percent of those live in just five nations: India, the country with the highest number of slaves, followed by China (3.4 million), Pakistan (2.1 million), Bangladesh (1.5 million), and Uzbekistan (1.2 million). North Korea has the most people enslaved in proportion to population, with 4.4 percent of the country’s people living in conditions of slavery. Slavery is illegal in every country, but it still exists and is common in some poor countries with oppressive governments or few human-rights protections. LINK.

I've written a chapter on slavery for my anthology Christianity is Not Great: How Faith Fails, which I think readers may find very informative.