Modern slavery

The main cause for the increase in the number of workers in the unorganised sector is economic

The editorial “Labour pain” (September 27) is insightful. The menace of growing unemployment in India is compounded by a steady increase in the number of labour in the informal sector, a practice rightly referred to as “modern slavery” in the Global Slavery Index report. The report defines it as “situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception” and observes that all forms of slavery are prevalent here — intergenerational bonded labour, forced child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced recruitment into non-state armed groups and forced marriage.