Activists against forced labor said Wednesday that while India tops a recent global slavery index, the situation is improving in the South Asian nation thanks to public awareness, legal reforms and police-backed raids on factories employing workers illegally. The Walk Free Foundation counted some 18.35 million modern slaves in India in its index of modern slavery released Tuesday, or 40 percent of a global total of 45.8 million, an estimate 10 million higher than the group last reported in 2014. The figures include children and adults forced into labor, often unpaid or to pay off a debt, as well as child brides, child soldiers and migrant workers. Officials with the Indian Labor Ministry did not immediately respond to calls for comment. Experts and activists said, however, that while the problem has persisted for years in India, there are signs that the situation is improving. "We get 20 complaints per day from family members and public in general" reporting labor abuse — a sign that awareness of the problem was growing, said Ramesh Senger from Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi's charity Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Childhood Movement. He noted that India's carpet industry used to employ 300,000 trafficked children just a decade ago, but that the number has come down to an estimated 5,000-10,000. Meanwhile, the number of children forced to work making plastic bangles in parts of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh is now negligible, whereas thousands worked in the industry 10 years ago. — AP
